Look, we think Michelle Obama is pretty cool, but if you asked us whose visit any Christmas-celebrating child would have on their mind on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, she wouldn’t make the top of our list. The top of our list would be Santa. Not so for Anthony of Fort Worth, Texas. How do we know this?
Well, because of the NORAD Santa Tracker, kind of.
See, in case you didn’t know, NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, “tracks” — I mean… tracks Santa on his journey around the world delivering toys to good little children, and displays the information online for folks to watch over the course of Christmas Eve and Day. What I didn’t know is that one of the duties of the First Lady is to call a few lucky American kids on Christmas Eve to give them a personal update on Stanta’s position. Simple enough, right? You’d think.
Like us, Anthony thinks Ms. Obama is cool, but he wasn’t afraid to make demands. Here’s the transcript of their call from the New York Times:
MRS. OBAMA: I’m working with the people who track Santa by satellite, and I’m looking at the screen right now and they say that — it’s showing that he was last spotted in Italy — Venice, Italy. Can you imagine that? He’s all the way in Europe. And in about 20 seconds he’s going to be headed for Croatia.
ANTHONY: Can you come visit me in Texas?
MRS. OBAMA: Yeah, he’s heading your way. He’s heading your way. But you know what, Santa doesn’t come until you’re fast asleep. You do know that, right?
ANTHONY: Yeah, I was talking about you trying to visit me.
MRS. OBAMA: Oh, me come to visit you. (Laughter.) Well, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to come and visit before Christmas tomorrow, but if ever I find myself in Texas next year — and I know I’m going to be coming to Texas one time next year — hopefully we can see each other then. How does that sound?
ANTHONY: Will you come to my house?
MRS. OBAMA: Yeah, I don’t know if I can come to your house. I might not be able to do that. But I’ll be keeping an eye on you, though.
ANTHONY: How about my school?
MRS. OBAMA: Your school — maybe your school. What school do you go to?
ANTHONY: (Inaudible).
MRS. OBAMA: All right, well, I’m going to tell my assistant right now. What part of Texas are you from?
ANTHONY: Fort Worth.
MRS. OBAMA: You’re at Fort Worth? I was in Fort Worth last year. So maybe we can come back. But until then, I want you to have a merry Christmas, okay Anthony?
ANTHONY: Okay.
MRS. OBAMA: All right, you give your family my best — what did you say, babe?
ANTHONY: Can I talk to your husband?
MRS. OBAMA: He’s not here right now. (Laughter.) But you know what, I will tell him that you asked about him. Okay?
ANTHONY: Okay.
MRS. OBAMA: All right. You keep being a good kid. Work hard in school, okay?
ANTHONY: Okay. Tell your daughters I said Merry Christmas.
MRS. OBAMA: I sure will. Thank you so much. You give your family my best, okay? You give them all a Merry Christmas from all of the Obamas, okay?
ANTHONY: Okay. Thank you.
MRS. OBAMA: All right, bye-bye.
ANTHONY: Bye-bye.
Anthony’s a tough negotiator, I’ll give him that, and it’s nice that he shared some seasons greetings for the rest of the family as well. So if he didn’t find a visit from Ms. Obama under his tree this year, well, there’s always next year?
(via Jezebel.)
