Shando was on the front page of the Vallejo Times-Herald! This is at least the second time Shando’s been photographed in that paper. Other friends, including Santa, were in the picture too, of course, I’m a little shocked that the headline says “several hundred” when the crowd looked like THOUSANDS to me.
Shando and I combined our footage from our perspective of this year’s Madhatter Holiday parade. We handed out candy as elves with Santa’s sleigh again, which is a major joy, making our way down to the Vallejo Ferry Building area for the official Vallejo xmas tree lighting. I was disheartened by how the rain started (while not even forecast) on our way to the event, but for the most part it held back and we were able to enjoy a relatively warm and eventually dry night for the majority of the evening.
Obligatory pre-parade group shot
Our friend Lisa can be a real Grinch!
Lots of our same friends from last year were on hand to be elves again. Shando was a lot more prepared with his costume, although there were plenty of Caucasian elf earpieces at our disposal and some other extraneous accessories we could have borrowed.
We helped load the candy for handing out in the back of the sleigh even with some of the volunteers from earlier today with the HSNB event, not to mention Santa and Mrs. Claus.
Shando and I struggled to make use of his elf shoe coverings, but they were not conducive to being easily slipped on. I had a brainstorm to put them over my socks and then use these sandals so that I could sort of simulate them and at least get the bells to work. I eventually took out the red pointy trim over my white jeans so it looked a bit better, but I’m proud we got to use this part of his costume in at least this way:
Shando and I are also visible in this video, together with a bunch of the other elves:
Thanks to the volunteers who helped out and donated their time, including my husband, Shando. He brought Snoopy and Peaches in the morning.
This video also gives some perspective of the fabulous space we were graciously permitted to use for our event, Tony’s Cakes is going to move to 418 Georgia Street, Vallejo from their current location on Springs Road. This is all of course for the benefit of HSNB.
I’m grateful that every year we have at least one family bring cats for HSNB’s Photos with Santa. This year was no exception. Santa was absolutely fawning over this kitten and another cat that this family brought.
Santa almost made Mrs. Claus jealous when he danced with his neighbor. Uh oh! Drama!
I stole this idea from Mrs. Claus and Trundy, but the Santas gave me a chance to do a cute ELF MOMENT with my husband.
Vallejo Mayor Robert McConnell, adorned in his Madhatter Parade garb, joined the Santas for some photos.
This is a group of photos with some of the kids and families I photographed myself. Some of these kids start as super shy, so we try to bring them casually up to the Santas to meet them, offering to allow them to remain with their parents if they prefer. Meanwhile, other kids run over and immediately reach out to hug the Santas, which just “sleighs” me. I have so many good memories from these events. I just wished I could capture more of these moments, but we were very busy on a good day to raise funds for homeless cats and dogs in our area.
Here are some of the other precious dog pictures from yesterday with the Santas for HSNB in Vallejo. The grey Pit, Misty, was adopted from HSNB when she was 4 months old. She’s now 11!
What a sweet exchange that I was so happy to facilitate!
Knowing I know the REAL Santa, my cousin’s daughters practiced in Italian AND English to record a lovely message to them. Clearly, they are stars and wanted to hear from Santa and Mrs. Santa (whom they refer to as Mother Christmas), so I’ll make sure they respond tomorrow when we do the second Photos with Santa as a fundraiser for the Humane Society of the North Bay.
This next video (short as it is) is also special to me. To my amazement, they did this in ONE TAKE, wishing a merry xmas to my cousin’s daughters by name and then mentioning that they would see them in Catanzaro someday, which gave them an extra thrill for the message being so personal and specific.
We did the xmas tree lighting in downtown Benicia for the first time, but before we hit the streets, we went to a chili dinner at the Episcopalian church on First Street which was led by the woman from whom Shando and I bought our house from. She retired and moved back to Canada. Many of the congregants, including our friends David and Yann, had been to her (now our) house for church events. She also happened to be a board member of the Glen Cove Community Association, which I’m currently president of.
It was a very busy evening and a lot of fun walking down the street with thousands of others, and running into some people we knew. It was festive, musical, and full of good smells from the restaurants and vendors.
These are two dogs that we’re fostering (bonded father and son) who will be available for adoption in January. One of them has cherry eyes and needs surgery, so that’s scheduled to be done. They are 6 and 3 years old, Peanut and Zorro. Peanut has tan spots and Zorro looks to be Pomeranian, which I assume comes more from his mother.
