Aoife gets a big Santa Surprise and it's emotional for me.


 
Aoife gets the biggest surprise of her life 
and it's involves a special ticket to a very special place. 


This year Aoife decided to write her letter to Santa earlier than usual. So with weeks gone by, since the beginning of this month Aoife has been watching the postbox very closely. You see, the eyes of this nine year old was looking to see Santa's response to her letter. A nod that yes, he got it and yes, he will be dropping by on the night of 24th of December is all that this little lady was looking for. 

Last night (middle of the night), Aoife woke up after hearing a knocking/clamping noise. Chatting about it at breakfast time and we are none the wiser. Then we noticed that Aoife's 'elf on the shelf' was missing. This does happen a lot, as most parents will testify to. But Aoife usually finds him somewhere else in the house. Nope, not this time. 
 
A screen grab of todays video when Aoife gets emotional 
on reading of Santa's invite for her to visit the North Pole


So now I ask Aoife "Remember that noise that woke you and Mammy up in the middle of the night last night, I'm thinking it sounded like the postbox being opened". With that, Aoife runs for the post box key (our postbox is a steel wall mounted parcel friendly unit beside our hall door). Aoife opens the box. She spots her Elf immediately sitting in the bottom of it and clutching a red envelope.  I spotted a postmark on the envelope from the North Pole. Yes, this was special. A gut feeling from me was that this was also going to be emotional. Aoife opened the letter and began to read. Santa started off by thanking her for writing to him. 

The words in the letter that Aoife was reading began to change direction. They were getting colder, and by that direction change I meant geographically. The artic circle was calling. The excitement in Aoife's voice began to break through. She was listening to her own voice but the vocal chords of this 9 year old was speaking the words of probably the oldest living man in the world. As Aoife kept reading, the excitement kept building. Then as she reads out the actual invite, her voice quivers and we get emotional. 

 
A once in a lifetime surprise that took 12 months of planning by Santa.

Aoife just got invited to visit the man himself and his elfs in their magical kingdom in the North Pole and Mammy and Daddy were invited too. I am of course going to miss out on a very special moment in Aoife's life. Regardless of my outlook, this hammers home how sick I am. I try to blank this thought from my mind and it's having none of it !! I'm only human I suppose. As I felt the tears giving up from holding back, they began to leak from my eyes. I put my arms around Aoife and gave this beautiful brave girl a big giant hug, my eyes hidden over her left shoulder. A quick stealth wipe of my face and I was good. Trying to keep composed while I told Aoife that Daddy cannot go was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I explained that Daddy is open to any and all infections at the moment and because Santa and his elves never get sick, there is no hospital in the North Pole. If Daddy got sick there I would have no help and no where to go to get help. 

To be fair, Aoife totally understands my situation. 
This young lady has done a lot of growing up and even 
more so in the past few weeks. 


As always, many thanks for reading my blog. 

 

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