Nutcracker and Santa Surprise

Tonight was the big tap dance performance of the Nutcracker, put on by Alana and Lili's dance company in Augusta. It started at 4:00, so we figured we'd make it until the girls got hungry, then go out to dinner.

We sat with Nana and Grandpa Nichols. Uncle Seth, Aunt Sara, and Sebastian were there too!

The performance was great--it's amazing how the leaders can organize all those young dancers, re-choreograph it for tap, and still make it entertaining.Alana and Lili both did great. Lili was one of the mice in the mouse army (laying on the floor below)........and next to the tree in this photo.Alana got to ride a horse (okay, a stick horse) with her buddies. She is the tall one in the center of the photo below.At intermission the kids were starting to get restless, and since their cousins' parts in the performance were over, we figured we'd head out to dinner.We saw Uncle Seth on the way out--he was very proud of his daughters!On the way to the car we ran into Lili, still in her makeup........and Alana too!Not surprisingly, all that dancing energy made our kids want to dance too.When we left the performance we decided to take a chance and go to a fairly nice restaurant--Slates, in Hallowell. We were hoping that the girls would be on their best behavior.

The first surprise that happened was the fireworks--a big display right there in town! The kids love fireworks and thought they were wonderful. Despite the fireworks we still managed to find parking downtown, and we got seated right away.

Our next surprise happened while we were reading our menus....Santa showed up!

The kids were overwhelmed to see Santa in the restaurant, and frankly so were we (check out the lovely wall mural behind Kate, which somehow doesn't really fit in with that Christmasy spirit).Santa came right over to our table and asked the girls what they wanted for Christmas. Kate was speechless in his presence, but Emily immediately spoke up and ran down her whole list for him.After telling the girls to be good, and letting loose with a few hearty ho ho ho's, Santa took off. Then we had a lot of questions to answer: "Was that really Santa?" "Where are the reindeer?" "Isn't he busy?" etc. etc. etc.Emily kept replaying the moment...it was really a very sweet surprise for the kids.Yes, we are perpetuating a lie, but we think it's nice that our kids believe in Santa Claus, at least for a few more years.