Santa Claus is Coming to Town!!

Every year my parents have Santa Claus come to there house the first Monday of December to let the children/families of Shelley come sit on his lap. This year was there 15th year of doing this, Santa has been showing up at my parents house since 1997!! Once I found out that Emily was going to make the drive up, I really wanted to go and get a ride up with her to help out. There was only one day where I was scheduled to work that kept me from going, so I asked around and was able to find someone to trade my shift with me. Jackson really wanted to come too because he remembered what it was like when we lived in Idaho Falls and were able to help out last year. But with his work schedule this year, he couldn't make it and he felt like he's already asked for too many days off for our move in November to ask for anymore. We missed you Jackson!

Anyhow, little did my parents know that I switched my schedule around to come. So when Emily and I drove up to Shelley, we stopped by my moms work and surprised her, not only with me but with Maximus too! The people my mom worked with LOVED Maximus! He was in heaven while we were visiting in there office! Than Maximus and I were in the living room waiting for my dad to get home from work. My dad was so excited to see us! :)

Well finally the night arrived for Santa to come to my parents house, my parents and Emily spent all day Monday getting ready for it. There's a lot of prep work that goes into it, I was really tired that day and wasn't much help until a couple of hours before where I helped get the sitting area in front of the house ready for where Santa would sit. We like to turn the porch into a cute Christmas setting so that way it's a nice looking backdrop for when parents take pictures of there kids sitting on Santa's lap.

This pic below is the flyer that gets passed out to all the kids at the elementary school the week before.

So as you can see, it started at 6:00, Santa is always ready to go by 5:30 because people usually start lining up around that time. So 5:30 rolls around and the Santa night begins! The rest of the pictures says it all on how the night turned out.

This picture is of the house right before kids showed up.

The snowman and sleigh is a new addition to the decorations this year! The green box back to the left of the snowman is a mailbox that is available for kids to put there letters to Santa in. The sleigh is an early Christmas gift from Emily to my mom and dad this year!

The line of kids that lasted until 8:15PM!

One of Santa's cute elves (Emily Hawkins) handed out yummy sugar cookies donated by Broulims in honor of it being our 15th year!

Emily had fun visiting with the kids before Santa did, often finding out what they wanted for Christmas before Santa did!

Ever since this started back in 97', I've always been one of the ones to hand out the coloring pictures that Santa gives the kids to color and write there Christmas wish-list on. I of course have missed a few of the 15 years of helping out with being away for College etc but it was fun to be back this year to help out. I am 6 months pregnant in this picture.

I couldn't leave Maximus home alone in Utah, so as I mentioned earlier I got to bring him with us! It was of course really cold outside so my mom was nice enough to find us an old blanket to wrap him up in. He's also wearing that sweater I bought him! :) He is such a good dog! :)

He fell asleep, all snug as a bug in the blanket.

The line ran clear past the house into the neighbors yard!

The kids just kept on coming!

We would have never made it throughout the night without the help of some awesome friends who helped in serving the hot chocolate as well as transporting the heavy gallons of it!

Over 400 cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows were served!

Just under 300 children sat on Santa's lap to share their Christmas wishes!

Katy Wilson one of Emily's friends took a turn at helping hand out papers, I couldn't stand there the full 2 hours like I use too. Thanx Katy!

At the end of the night after the long line of children, Maximus and I couldn't resist and had to sit on Santa's lap as well!

Maximus wanted his own turn! :)

I just love this picture of Maximus!! :)

Emily the cookie elf!

Emily and her great friends that helped out!

Ben Wilson, one of the helpers with hauling in all the donated food!

Emily by the tree!

Food collected for the Shelley Food bank! So many generous people who came to visit Santa shared there food with those who are less fortunate! (Approximately 400 lbs of food!)

Emily and I helping box up all the food for the Shelley food bank!

Well, that is it for the pictures of the Santa night! Hopefully my parents can do it for another 5 more years and at least make it to 20 years!! ;) Jackson and I hope to take our kids to come meet Santa sometime in the years to come! :)