Guest Blog: What It's Like To.....Have Santa and Mrs. Claus for Grandparents

While I'm on vacation in Costa Rica, some of my friends have volunteered to step in with guest blogs on the theme "What It's Like to...." Hope you enjoy! Buenos dias! :)

I'm super excited about today's guest blog from my friend Mama Rock!  She married one of my best guy friends from high school, Daddy Rock, and they have three of the cutest kids that you've ever seen in your life.  How she keeps up with him and the kids and her job PLUS has time to write a guest blog is beyond me.  I've already got her tapped to do a Meet the Cast post and intend on asking!  So with that...Mama Rock!

"We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.”

Mama Rock and her grandparents...Santa and Mrs. Claus

My Papa has had his beard since 1965. 2 of his 7 children have never seen him without it. It used to be jet black but when it turned white he got this hair brained idea to stand on the over pass outside of town and wave at people dressed as Santa.  The first time he tried it a sheriff’s deputy showed up because someone had called in a jumper.

One of the first parades he was ever in, he talked my brother into being an elf but I thought I was too cool for that (because apparently I thought the glasses and braces were helping my case).

Eventually he suckered by Granny into dressing up like Mrs. Claus.

He has always believed that once you quit working, you die, so in 2009 him and my brother decided to put a drive thru Christmas park out on his and Granny’s 4 acres. Anyone who goes out there and doesn’t think it is an insane amount of work is CRAZY. They usually start in September and work all the way up to opening night on Thanksgiving. It is all donation based. People have donated over 100,000 Christmas lights! It is like the Griswold’s on steroids.

My oldest daughter decided to be an elf 2 years ago and amazingly enough she still truly believes in Santa. I’m sure my youngest children will be recruited before long.

Mama Rock's girls playing elves.

The rest of the year is spent going to Vegas, playing softball (Rylin and Papa both play), and loving on their grandbabies.  Growing up with such eccentricity might have warped us but I think it was all for the good.  Scratch that.  I KNOW it was all for the good.  It has taught us patience, how to work hard, joy, love for each other but mostly that doing things for others to make them so incredibly happy can be so rewarding.  About Halloween we always seem to think “What are we doing this for?”  but on Thanksgiving night when that first kid jumps out of the car in his pj’s and screams “Santa!” we remember why we do it and know that it’s all worth it.

Santa playing catcher.