Owen Baskerville, Syracuse, is all smiles and giggles as he meets Santa Claus. InkFreeNews Photos by Deb Patterson.

By Deb Patterson
InkFreeNews

SYRACUSE — A steady line of vehicles came to the Syracuse Community Center Saturday morning, Dec. 5, to visit Santa in a drive-thru Breakfast With Santa.

The annual Breakfast with Santa event, hosted by the Syracuse Parks Department, had a few adjustments this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but there was still plenty of fun and smiling young faces.

While children normally get a chance to sit at a table to make various Christmas crafts, mix up their own reindeer food, or sit around a table to eat their pancakes and sausage while listening to Christmas music and then wait in line to see Santa, that didn’t happen this year. Instead, their chauffeurs (mainly parents) drove them through the parking lot where they were given bags of craft items to make and given carry-out pancakes and sausage. Their final stop was a brief visit with Santa.

Santa was perfect in directing traffic so he could talk with the children.

Santa, who was often seen directing traffic to his tent, greeted each child and handed out candy canes. He had plenty of offers to have some pancakes and sausage saved for him by the youngsters. Santa, as always, was greeted by eager children, some who were just as jolly as Ol’ St. Nick himself, with others being a little shy or just not sure what to think of this man with a white beard and red coat.

Members of the Wawasee Kiwanis were busy in the parks department garage grilling pancakes and frying up sausage with another crew in the kitchen packaging up the meals handed out by yet another group.

Lakeland Youth Center, Syracuse Public Library and the Syracuse-Wawasee Chamber of Commerce each had prepackaged bags of crafts to be made at home. The Syracuse-Wawasee Historical Museum handed out reindeer food for kids to scatter on the lawns on Christmas Eve for the reindeer.