Five Years, Five Storybook Albums: A Family’s Christmas Story

This year, they will make the two-hour journey from Erie once again for their sixth Christmas with us — and this time, they'll step into Santa's Elf Academy, our newest Santa Experience.

Last year at her viewing appointment, their mother asked Daniel a question that made us smile.

"Is it going to look funny when I'm still bringing them here when they're 18?"

We don't think it will look funny at all. We hope she does. Because someday these four children will be nearly grown, but you are never too old to help Santa build toys in his workshop. Their family will have an entire collection of Storybook Albums preserving the years when they still believed — when three brothers welcomed a baby sister, and a two-hour drive from Erie became part of their family's Christmas tradition.

Several of our families have now returned for five years or longer. Each one has a story we could tell — babies becoming toddlers, children growing into new roles, families changing one Christmas at a time.

What those families may not realize is that, somewhere along the way, they became part of our Christmas tradition, too. We begin every season looking forward to their familiar faces. We wonder how much the children have grown, what they will remember, and how they will react when they see Santa again.

It is one beautiful book becoming two. Then three. Then five. A collection that begins with three little boys and grows to include a baby sister, new adventures, and all the fleeting Christmases of childhood.

Five years ago, this family opened the first book in their story with us. This Christmas, they will begin the sixth — and if they are still walking through our doors when those children are eighteen, we will be very happy to add another volume to their collection.