Oh, hey, what's up? Yeah, it's late, and once again, I'm barfing up some totally lame last-minute "content" for my "blog". I'm tired, okay? I was up really early, at 3:45 a.m., so I could go stand in line at Target with a bunch of people. Some, like me, were bemused. Others were Very Serious, as in hand-drawn maps of the store Serious. As in, won't share what items they're looking for Serious. Most were cold. And then the doors opened and I did some Christmas shopping and got some good deals and did not get trampled. The end.

I think I'm also tired because we went downtown this evening for the downtown Lawrence Santa/Tree-lighting event. Look, a link! The event itself was a bit tiring because wrangling the children in a crowd is always draining. But even more tiring than the great Santa rescue itself was the sudden flood of questions about Santa the event inspired in Charlotte.

"Why is he on the roof? Why did his sleigh break down? Where are his reindeer? Where will Santa go now? How will he get back to his sleigh? Will his reindeer be okay?" etc.

I did my best to answer her questions in a way that would keep the mystery alive for awhile but still tried to give the story the flavor of a story, so she doesn't think we're totally full of it. As we drove home, and the answers came faster and faster from the backseat, Jeff and I looked at each other with one of those Significant Spousal Nonverbal Exchanges.

"She's finding every hole in this story," I said.

"She's smarter than this," Jeff responded.

I answered a few more questions ("His rudder broke!" "The reindeer are eating some hay and carrots! They're resting up for the return flight!" "The mechanics are fixing the sleigh!") and then said "I am just digging myself deeper into a pit of lies."

Dramatic, yes. But this is the girl who was so fixated on the possibility that my dad heard a turkey on our walk yesterday ("But what did papa hear?" "Where is the turkey?" "Will the turkey come to see us?"). She's really interesting in the world around us, and has a particular curiosity about the strange, the bizarre, the out-of-the-ordinary. Which, really, this whole Santa thing is.