Scary old men with white beards (Anna)

Apparently, Emma is scared of Santa. Or at the very least has considerable disdain for him.

We first got a hint of it this year when we were reading "Merry Christmas Blue Kangaroo" for the first time. The Blue Kangaroo series is one of Emma's favourites and we have read all the others ad nauseum. But with this book, every time we got to the page where Father Christmas makes an appearance, she would close the book and say, "No." Sometimes she would refuse to read the book at all, and other times she would happily read up to that page, and then refuse to go any further. We have actually never made it to the end of that book with her.

And then today, she and I were going Christmas shopping at the mall. I said to her, "So, Emmy, we're going shopping today."
She nodded and said, "For Chri'mas". And I said, "Yes, that's right! We're going Christmas shopping." And I started to tell her some of the fun things we might see at the mall.
"Maybe we'll hear some carollers singing Christmas carols," I said.
And she said," Yeah!"
"And there'll be light and decorations."
"Yeah!"
"And maybe some Christmas trees."
"Yeah!"
"And there'll be lots of people buying each other presents. And you never know, we might even buy some pressies ourselves."
"Yeah!"
"And, maybe Father Christmas will be there."
No response.
"Do you want to see Santa Claus, Emmy?" I prompted.
She shook her head adamantly. "No," she said.
"You don't want to see Father Christmas?"
"No."
"But you want to see lights and decorations and things?"
"Yeah."
"But not Santa Claus?"
"No."
"Are you scared of Santa Claus."
"Yeah?" she said.

Of course, it might have something to do with last year's encounter with the old man.

So, there will be no cute photos of Emma sitting on Santa's knee this year (unless of course she sees all the other kids doing it and decides it's in her best interests to rethink).