Santa’s Checking His List --Twice

Santa wasn’t drunk, but he was seeing double.

More than 50 sets of twins and triplets, along with their parents, visited him at the Brea Mall in an event to benefit displaced mothers whose children have been victims of abuse.

The event, hosted by the North County chapter of Mothers of Multiples, gave parents a chance to bring their twins and triplets to visit Santa without the added burden of dealing with crowds, said Kim Donaldson, chapter spokeswoman.

“It’s hard enough when you have one screaming baby, but when you have two or three, it can be pretty hard to wait in line all the time,” said Donaldson, herself a mother of twins.

The Saturday event also doubled as a fund-raiser for mothers at the Eli Home for abused and neglected children. The families of twins and triplets brought a variety of gifts, including personal items, for the Eli Home mothers, Donaldson said.

The Mothers of Multiples chapter, which has about 65 families, hasn’t hosted the holiday event for the past several seasons, she said. “We weren’t sure how many families would attend,” she said. “So with 50-plus families, we were very happy with the turnout.”

The Anaheim-based chapter offers support groups and family activities for parents with twins, triplets and quadruplets, though the group does not have any members with quadruplets.

Parents often seek those whose twins have similar attributes--such as age or gender--to share experiences.

“If someone, for instance, has a boy and a girl, or two boys and two girls, they can find someone whose twins match up and talk about different things in their different phases of growing up,” Donaldson said.

Mothers of Multiples can be contacted at P.O. Box 6524, Anaheim, CA 92816.