Stepping Santa ROCKS!

I was shopping at Costco (my favorite store) before Christmas/2005 and came across "Stepping Santa" which is a mechanical Santa that goes up & down a 40 inch high ladder while carrying a strand of lights.

So I thought this was kinda cute and spent the big bucks (~$30) on it. And then I figured it might be fun to make it part of my christmas lights webcam where you can not only view the lights, but also control them. Yes, you can turn stuff on & off at my house via the web ... so with the click of your mouse, you could make Stepping Santa go up & down the ladder, or make him stop while web surfers from around the world watched on the webcam - check out the Stepping Santa video. And that's just ONE evening - I gotta believe Santa is good at Step Aerobics! ;-)

He's a huge hit with the kids - my friends Wendy & Jon from Steamboat Springs loaned me their son for the cute pictures at the bottom. But hearing Stepping Santa rachet up & down the ladder can drive you nuts, especially if it is every evening for a month as was my case ... but I'm a bit extreme! ;-) BTW, he also plays christmas music ... fortunately, you can turn this off since otherwise, I would have gone totally bonkers. And while the Big Red Guy did occasionally slip and "fall/slide" down the ladder, he was a real trooper and hung in there for the entire holiday season - he must have gone up & down a bazillion times.

And while I'll be pulling my Stepping Santa from the basement crawlspace storage, you can get one since Costco is selling him again for 2006!