Last Monday it was an unseasonably balmy 65 degrees. You could hear doors slamming all up and down Hicks Street as parents went screaming out of their apartments to bring their babies to the playground one more time before winter set in. Then on Tuesday the weather did an about-face and it snowed big, fat pretty snowflakes for about five minutes. But it didn't stick. It wasn't until yesterday that we finally had a proper winter storm, where it snowed for hours and then turned to what the weather guy calls a "wintery mix," which sounds promising but is nowhere near as good as Chex Mix.
Twas the season, so some of my mama friends and I took the babes to Macy's to visit Santa. We thought it would be madness and were bracing ourselves to endure long lines, but it was pretty manageable and those Santaland elves are really, really organized. We had a blast. Things are really weird in the North Pole nowadays though -- I don't often describe things as post-modern but this really was that. (Spoilers ahead for young believers....) Instead of seeing Santa at the front of the line, each child is personally led by an elf through a crazy plywood "forest" -- trees painted on a maze of doors -- until you arrive at the one where your Santa is, in a tiny claustrophobic room. You don't see any other children in the forest - it's all painstakingly orchestrated and, I gotta say, those elves run their show well.
