The Santa Picture

You gotta do it, right? Right? Well, we did. And I'm thankful that Miss A and I went alone because her Dada definitely would not have had the patience required.

First of all I got A all dressed up in her Christmas outfit and bundled her up to go to the mall only to find that Santa wasn't there until 1:00. I was certain I had read on their sign just last week that on Mondays and Tuesdays Santa was there at 10:00. Hmph! So I went to a pay phone and invited ourselves to my mom's for lunch.

Since we were already there I figured we'd go ahead and do the other thing I'd planned. Go to a shopping party! Do other stores have these? I received a call the other day from this store and because I have one of their special 'cards' they told me I was invited to receive 25% off on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I've been to these before but today I was disappointed. Not because Miss A was totally not in the mood for shopping, was generally grumpy and the only thing that made her happy was playing with my wallet and emptying it's contents into the cart. (Although that didn't help.) It was because it seemed like they had removed any nice clothing they had and brought out all the reject stuff in hopes that they could liquidate it at the 'party'. I had hoped I'd find a couple of pairs of dress pants for work but every pair I tried on just didn't fit right. I ended up walking away with only a simple black shirt and a frown.

After we had had lunch we made the trip back to the mall and Santa. Much to my dismay there were already several people in line. We joined the line and waited our turn. It has obviously been a long time since I paid any attention to the Santa booth at the mall. It made me feel very uneasy seeing parents trying to force their children to sit on this guys lap. They would cry and hold onto their mothers for dear life. I kept thinking 'Just stop. Don't make the kid do it if they don't want to. Is it really worth it?' I was also thinking 'Just give up already, it's someone else's turn.' I felt foolish even taking part in this strange tradition.

Santa had all the personality of a robot, barely speaking to the kids just holding them on his lap and staring blankly at the camera. I even tried to strike up a bit of a conversation with him but he mostly nodded, said very little and then turned on his fan. Miss A sat on his lap just fine at first but she wanted to get down to check out all the cool stuff. When robot Santa handed her a candy cane she sat on his knee just fine. She looked at the photographer with her big blue eyes and posed with a serious look like a little model.



The whole experience left me feeling a little depressed. I felt sorry for all the kids that wailed to not be put on that scary guy's lap. I felt sorry for robot Santa in his beard and big red costume that was designed for someone who lived in the North Pole, not a shopping mall. I'm not sure I'll do it again next year. I can see A being the kind of kid that would actually want to go and sit on his knee. Although I thought I would have been like that as a kid too but the truth is I was afraid too afraid to get my picture taken with him until I was thirteen years old. So we'll see. It seemed like a nice idea but in reality it was just a big pain in the neck.