A Christmas Story

Erlan likes to tell a story about visiting Santa. He says:

Cheese.

Poop.

Choo-choo.

Mommy then translates for his avid listener.

We took a picture with Santa ("cheese").

Then Erlan went to the bathroom to poop.

Then Erlan rode a little 75 cent train.

The longer version of the story goes like this:

Erlan and Mommy stood in line for 30 minutes to get Erlan's picture taken with Santa while Santa had a lunch break. Three minutes before Santa is supposed to arrive, Erlan announces, "Poop!" I told him that we would first "Cheese" with Santa and then he could poop. Erlan asked, "Choo choo?" "Yes," I said, "we will choo-choo after pooping." [At that point, I wasn't actually sure what he was talking about. Erlan, who loves trains, had spotted a kid's train ride while we were walking around the mall. I figured there must be a train somewhere in that mall, and we could find it after the poop and picture.]

Erlan was fine with this plan. As we are standing there (1st in line), Santa finally walks out. The kids start cheering and waving. Erlan sees Santa and emits a high-pitched scream--the kind you hear in horror movies. He was terrified. I finally got him to wave to Santa, but I knew that he wasn't convinced that this guy is jolly.

I let the people behind us go first so that Erlan could see that Santa is ok. Erlan still was not convinced. Another family gets their picture taken. Even though Erlan still does not want his picture taken, I force the issue because of the impending need for him to poop. Erlan screamed again, started crying, and reluctantly sat on my lap for the picture. The result was this:

From this, we created our 2008 Christmas card:

We hope everyone has a great holiday!