Santa Claus or the Big Balloon Bear?

Bradyn got to enjoy his first hockey game with Oomba and Oompa Lee...well, he enjoyed the "hockey" part of the game, but not the opening of the show. When we arrived at the game, he was SO excited (as most of you know...he's obsessed with ALL sports), he could hardly contain his excitement. They started preparing for the opening of the game by inflating this large bear that the hockey players would skate through. We sat and watched them inflate this thing and Bradyn was so excited and then...he started screaming and crying uncontrollably when the bear was about half of the way inflated. We had to take him out of the arena to try and settle him down. Once the bear was deflated and off the ice, we were able to return and he loved watching the rest of the game. This all happened around Thanksgiving...still to this day he continues to talk about "The Big Balloon Bear" with concern! So, we were very concerned when we found out that Santa was coming to visit Bradyn at his daycare...we figured if a Big Balloon Bear got that kind of a reaction, Santa may bring on the same fears. When I picked him up from daycare, I asked him if he saw Santa and he said, "Yeah...big guy." Oohh boy, I thought I knew where this was headed and then his teacher said, "He LOVED Santa! He RAN to him and jumped on his lap, and grabbed his santa hat and wore it!" Yes, I was floored, he loves the "big guy". So, this weekend we headed out to see Santa again and get his picture taken with him, something we never imagined we'd be doing this year! When we got there, he was so excited to see Santa again, but even more excited to see the 3'x3' bag of candy canes next to him! Santa really made Bradyn's day when he asked Bradyn about Mater...one of his favorite "Cars" characters! Ho Ho Ho!