Dear Santa

One of the great things about our Fridays, is that we can make the day into a project. On a good day, we can start with a theme, the thread of which will run through the whole day, and things he is doing at school can evolve and be brought to life by stuff we do at home and whilst we are out.

I had booked for us to go to meet Father Christmas at Kedleston Hall, so we started the day by writing a letter to him.

Surely that's not a smile Ferdy? Whilst writing...???!!!

My absolute favourite bit is the commas

We have a scrapbook for Ferdy's work on Fridays so we made a copy for him to put in an envelope and give to Santa.

Off we went.

We arrived far too early and were told that Santa was drying himself off after being caught in the rain so we went out into the garden to check out the advent trail.

All around the Pleasure Grounds, there are 24 boxes, each attached to a tree and containing an activity. It was brilliant! We had to: sing carols, (I always thought it was 'away in a manger, no crib for a bed but learnt from Gil today that it's actually 'I am a robot, no crib for a bed'); count snowflakes; test our knowledge of Christmas; guess what's in a stocking, and meet a polar bear.

And then it was time to meet the man himself.

There are so many Santas. They live in shopping centres, garden centres, toddler groups, parties etc etc. And Ferdy has already decided that they can't all be real. He's been asking things like can reindeer really fly but it's up to him to decide so I usually ask him what he thinks. He's still pretty self-centred and isn't actually that interested in my (dreary) answers to his questions anyway..

This encounter with Santa, however, felt magical. We knocked on a large door in the Stables and were ushered (by an Elf) into a low lit, intimately atmospheric room with a glowing fire and a kindly Santa at its heart. Ferdy was a bit shy (so was I!) but gave him his letter and helped Santa read it. Santa loved the picture of himself (don't we all..?), and Ferdy, although totally enchanted by him, managed to impart that we were going to be in Holland for Christmas, and that he liked Yoda.

This Santa was, most definitely, the real deal.

Gil was a little less impressed and stated very loudly that he 'don wan to see that man never again'. He also cried because his present wasn't a toy.

Then is was time for some Christmas crafts. We made an owl lantern, some stained glass very fierce robins and Ferdy also made a Octoblock Robin card (he had 8 eyes).

Ferdy really enjoyed doing the crafts and once we got a bit restless we went outside for some running around.

He loved our game of weaving in and out of the trees and trying to catch each other. I was actually a tiny bit annoyed when they both managed to catch me.. Time for lunch then.

Ever since Ferdy was 1 year old we have had to find cafes with books in.
I think I know every cafe in Derbyshire and Staffordshire that contains books

On days like these, and when Ferdy is not too tired, we can do so much. When we got home we played a numbers game grouping numbers into highest and lowest, and odd and even groups.

We've lost number 3

He even read me the whole of a rather tricky book because it was about a brother and a sister writing letters to Santa.

A fierce Robin with claws and toenails