Day 715 - James Meets Santa for the First Time! 🎅🏻🎄☃️

Thursday, December 15th, 2022

Today we went to Enchant Christmas St Petersburg at the Tropicana. It was a great experience and we will probably be going back every year. 

The entire place is filled with lights there is a little village with shops and places to get food. They have a huge ice skating rink and a light maze with a scavenger hunt to find things. Santa is on a completely separate floor which was nice because you weren't getting your picture taken while a bunch of strangers were watching you. It was an a separate room. We also got an aerial view of the place while we were up high.

When we met Santa the elves had let us know that he was taking a milk and cookie break. The Santa was legit the whole environment was amazing. When we brought him in we let Santa know that James comes with accessories and he said that was no problem. As we were trying to get him out of the stroller with his feeding pump and Farral bag Mom started to tear up because James was doing so good. The combination of the decorations, the friendliness of Santa, and just the reality that James made it to this point was a lot to take in all at once. As we were taking pictures we were quickly telling Santa that James was born at 1 lb and spent almost a year in the hospital and that for Christmas he would like to get his trach out. Afterwards Santa was so moved that he stroller just to talk to James. James gave him a high five. At this point Mom heard Dad starting to sniffle. We then headed over to the photo station to purchase outrageously overpriced photos. But before we could get there Dad saw that Mom was crying and we both just became hysterical. During this whole time James didn't shed a tear. 😂 When we were going over photo package prices the woman was like "Hey so what's going on? Tell me all about it". Of course then we have to repeat the same thing... Born at 1 lb, 254 days in the hospital, on a ventilator, he has been through so much, we have been through so much. Of course with our emotions high we purchased the deluxe platinum package and handed over our credit card. So you'll see below that there are photos that the photographer took with our phones and then also photos that they took (the last four that are darker). Let us know which ones are your favorites!

P.S. You can email James your love and support as often as you’d like. Mom and Dad read these email to James as they come in. We all love them! JamesWestonAbramowitz@gmail.com