Maybe next year

We had prepped Oliver by asking if he'd been naughty or nice, whether he'd been a good boy this year and what he wanted for Christmas, but this year he didn't even give Santa a chance to ask.  Last Christmas he was none too happy about sitting on Santa's lap, but he couldn't walk yet and wasn't as strong, so he didn't have much recourse when he was plopped on Santa's lap.  This year he's a full-fledged toddler with a (strong) will of his own.  Letting him swipe as many cookies as he wanted from the snack table had kept him in good spirits while we waited in line, but right before it was his turn to visit with the jolly old man and his sweet wife, Oliver made it clear he was  not interested. So while Oliver hung back with Dad, I took advantage of Soren napping, placed him in Mrs. Claus's arms and got my photo op with at least one of my kids with the Clauses.

We tried cheering Oliver up by taking him over to have his face painted.  Oliver LOVES painting - he'd been talking about it since he got up that morning.  Except he didn't understand that he wasn't getting to paint - that someone was going to paint for him instead.  He probably thought, what's the fun in that?  He sat patiently at the table at first and eyed the paints, brushes and paper, but became increasingly agitated when no one granted his requests for "paint" and "brush."  We decided to leave before a full meltdown ensued and we literally carried him away from the table. 

As we left, we saw a couple of other kids Oliver's age who cried at the sight of Santa Claus, so it's clearly the age.  I guess we'll just have to try again next year.