Santa's gifts to the animals at the Cincinnati Zoo

 

Santa outside the brand new gorilla home

 
Every year, Santa listens to the wishes of the children who come to visit him at the Festival of Lights at the Cincinnati Zoo. Then one day, just before Christmas, he visits some of the animals of the zoo to bring them some special enrichment. This year he brought his animal surprises on Friday morning, December 22.

Santa brought sweet surprises in a plastic container wrapped in a jute bag

 This year he visited Gladys, M'linzi and Samantha at the new gorilla house, the cougars and the snow leopards at Cat Canyon, and the Komodo Dragon, who often is forgotten about as he is tucked away behind the lemurs.

Carrots make a nice wreath decoration at the new gorilla enclosure

Santa brought carrot wreaths and jute bags filled with sweet surprises for the gorillas. Long after the fruit is gone, the gorillas will have fun with the gunny sacks, playing with them, wearing them for hats, and dragging them around.

The cougars are excited by the paper mache toys

The cougars got paper mache candy canes, for they love to play with paper mache. The cougars rubbed their faces all over the candy canes and got the red paint on their fur.

Rubbing and rubbing

Keeper takes a photo

The cougars got two paper mache candy canes from Santa

Mine!

The red stripes are rubbing off

Still playing

Santa watches the cougars rip apart their paper toys 

The snow leopards received paper mache stockings, and played with their new toys too.

The snow leopards got paper mache stockings

Too pretty to rip up?

Local TV stations sent cameras to cover Santa's special visit

The kids loved it

The Komodo Dragon was given a wrapped up snack

The Komodo Dragon had a hard time getting into his Christmas gift, a wrapped box with meat snacks inside.

Almost open. There were pieces of meat inside.

Santa watches the Komodo Dragon open his gift

Santa promised to return Christmas Eve with presents for all the animals.

Santa promised to return on Christmas Eve with presents for everyone, including little Kendi, the baby Black Rhino.

Anana keeps her distance from Little One

Little One dreams of a White Christmas

No, not Christmas dinner. The meercats keep warm in a bowl

Bibi and Fiona have already gotten gifts, and no doubt will get more from Santa on Christmas Eve.