There’s only five more days till Christmas and that can only mean one thing: Time to go to the Northwoods Mall and see if Santa Claus will eat lunch with me!

Here we are at Northwoods Mall and there’s the food court. Last year I got a Philly Chicken Cheese sandwich at the Steakhouse & Fries place and I kind of felt like a failure because Santa didn’t eat his half of it. He took my cookies and it was a fun time, but it was still tainted with a feeling of gloom because I realized I had made a bad choice. A sandwich is too much of an investment of time for Santa because there’s always kids waiting in line and it would take too long to eat. This year I decided to go for more of a snack type item for the two of us to have for our holiday lunch and photo session.

This year I got two egg rolls at Famous Wok. This should be perfect because it’s finger food that we can both eat quickly and I won’t hold the line up too much. I also got him some cookies at Mrs. Fields because you have to bring Santa some cookies, it’s just the rules, fools!

Okay, time to go see Santa! We’ll pass the familiar gumball machines that we’ll be counting in January, hopefully with Chad Wallace! And there’s the aerial view of Santa in his festive and fabulous sparkly village.

As I approached Santa he waved and he remembered me from last year’s visit! I was pleasantly surprised by that and had a feeling that this year’s visit would be a good one!

Extreme Santa close-up!

He showed me his E.T. like glowing thumb and his watch measures if you’ve been good or bad and amazingly it said I had been a good boy this year. Oh well, the good news for Santa is that Zales Jewelers are close by and maybe they can fix it.

There’s Leanna and she remembered me from last year too! This whole Santa experience is brought to Peoria by Cherry Hill Programs and you can read all about them here. Okay, time for this year’s Santa Claus photos, I’m excited!

The great and joyous news is that Santa loved the egg roll idea and here we are enjoying them together! This was a magical visit and a really fun time!