We’ve almost reached the end of November, but already it rather feels like December. Strange how that works. I must be simply rolling from Craft Fair and production time right into Christmas without the usual panic to meet additional deadlines that falls temporally between the two.

So Katherine and I went Christmas shopping today. We went to Chapters, where Katherine played with trains for a nice long while. She loves the wooden brio-style train set and is developing an affection for the Thomas the Tank Engine characters that rivals her Blues Clues addiction.

Then we bopped over to the Mall, cruised Sears, saw lots of kids’ rides (the kind that you put money into and they move spasmically for 30 seconds, only to require still more money. Funny how I was more than willing to feed them for nieces, but not for my own kid), bumped into my Grandad and Eleanor (whom Katherine calls “Grown-Up Eleanor”). I had thought them to be already in Florida, but they had some medical stuff to get done before heading south and should be moving on in a week or two.

Then we rode the escalator for twenty minutes or so, until Mall security started watching me and wondering if they should say something. We weren’t disturbing anything, so they really shouldn’t have had a problem. Us going up and down repeatedly and quietly ought not to be any more problematic than a sequence of people continuously going up and down, but we decided to err on the side of caution and have pretzls instead of confrontations.

The real jewel in our outing was that Katherine met Santa Claus today. She’s been talking about Santa constantly and is really getting excited about Christmas, but hadn’t seen a Santa until today. Her face positively lit up and she started doing that really cute wiggle that excited but slightly shy kids do when hoping beyond hope that they can do whatever it is that’s exciting them. She actually went over to Santa, sat happily on his lap and told him that she wanted a dollhouse and a flashlight for Christmas. In fact, she was highly reluctant to leave when the time came. Must take her back again sometime soon.