Botanica Illuminations & Emery meets Santa

On Friday night we ventured out to Botanica's Illuminations event to meet Santa and see the Christmas lights!  We had a wonderful evening!  Chilly weather, big coats, gloves, hot apple cider, cookies...nothing like enjoying the holidays!  They had several little chimeneas set up around Botanica which was awesome, too.  And...best of all, we went to the North Pole and met Santa Claus!  We had been gearing Emery up for two days about meeting Santa...he had his "Ho! Ho! Ho!" down pat and loved talking about him.  While waiting in line, Em's eyes lit up at his first glimpse of the jolly old man.  We could tell he was very excited.  However, as we got closer, Emery got more hesitant about sitting on his lap.  And, of course, the inevitable happened...he cried!  I snapped a really quick photo (to embarrass him in front of future girlfriends, of course) and then I scooped him up and we get got a photo taken together with Santa.  Even though he cried, after we were finished he said he liked meeting Santa.  We have a funny kid :)  It was a great evening and I really think it could become a fun yearly tradition for us to enjoy together as a family.  Enjoy some photos we snapped--including the classic Santa photo--and a video we took of their amazing light show!