Dear Editor:
A week ago or so, our caregiver Erica was at our home caring for our 23-month-old son, Jonah. For their afternoon adventure, she took him for a walk around the block in our small Hamilton Heights neighourhood to look at the Christmas lights. There is one house with a long path up to the front door. At the end of the path there was an inflatable Santa, which was deflated at the time.
Jonah was quite concerned about the Santa. He's just learning his words, so struggles to communicate sometimes, but was clearly worried and said, "Oh no." Erica suggested he knock on the door and ask what happened to Santa, which my very social son proceeded to do.
Our neighbour opened the door, and Jonah, still distressed, pointed at Santa and said, "Oh no." Our neighbour played along and said Santa was taking a nap. She suggested that he say "Wake up, Santa" and then she plugged him in, so Santa came to life. Jonah clapped and waved and said "Woke up. Yay!" over and over again.
Now we go almost daily to see if Santa is "awake." Shortly after his first encounter, I accompanied him (he showed me where to go!), and Santa was unfortunately "asleep." Jonah was again so worried about Santa, he knocked again at the door, but this time our neighbour wasn't home. After many, many minutes of trying to convince him that it was time to go, I finally made it to the end of the path although Jonah was still very hesitant to leave Santa behind deflated. But just then, the timer must have clicked in, as the sun was setting, and Santa "woke up," inflating himself to wave his pink polyester hand at Jonah. He ran in excitement back up the path and almost bowled him over with a hug.
Yesterday, on our daily visit to see Santa, our neighbour's sister happened to arrive for a visit and she was so pleased to have arrived at the same time to meet this little guy who was in love with the inflatable Santa.
I was incredibly touched by this story of the pure joy, inspired by the season. My little son meeting our friendly neighbours and bringing us together in such a raw and loving way. The joy of seeing the world through the eyes of a toddler is just amazing. I've shared this story so many times with my own family and friends, and it always makes us smile. I hope you may share this story with the rest of North Vancouver to celebrate our community and the spirit of the season
Jennifer Petersen North Vancouver
