My kids and ubiquitous Santa, 20081. It is true that you are allowed to bring your own camera to the Santa exhibit at the mall. They just don’t publicize that.
2. Because they want you to shell out $25 or more for a couple of plastic keychain picture frames and the wallet sized photos to put in them.
3. Throwing in a Shutterfly gift card is a nice touch, and savvy marketing for Shutterfly, for sure.
5. It is decidedly weird to see two grown adults in line for Santa and posing for photos with him – without children.
6. It is a physical law that if one of your children is being perfectly behaved while waiting in the line to take photos with Santa, the other one will become an absolute hellion.
7. Santa must be real. How else would every single Santa at every mall we’ve visited over the years look exactly the same?
8. The people working the Santa line need to move it along. While one party is looking at their photos and deciding, the next party in line should get to go talk to Santa and get acquainted. If the workers don’t facilitate this, feel free to approach him yourself. He won’t bite. At least not before 7pm.
9. Santa should NOT be allowed to take bathroom, meal, or smoke breaks. Have a freaking backup Santa. That shit is not cool when you’ve been standing in line for a half hour with a toddler.
10. If your baby or toddler cries during the Santa photo, that is funny. Don’t fight it. You’ll love it later in that child’s life.
Thats a really cute picture even with the screaming Brady
Oh, my. I laughed out loud on #9 —
Santa should NOT be allowed to take bathroom, meal, or smoke breaks. Have a freaking backup Santa. That shit is not cool when you’ve been standing in line for a half hour with a toddler.
It’s like ..no kidding. Duh.
Picture is super cute! Thanks for sharing. Q
This is one area that I’l take your word on.
The flip side of #7 when you’re a little Jewish kid? My family knew the man that played Santa in the local mall when I was little. He was Mr. Bell. I then believed for YEARS that every man I saw dressed as Santa was Mr. Bell, in every mall, everywhere we went. I must have looked crazy to all the other kids in line when I would shout, “Hello, Mr. Bell!” whenever I saw Santa.
My worst Santa moment? Finally dragging my kid to the mall, all dressed up for his Santa meet & greet photo opp, only to find when we get there that it is “Pet Night”. Santa was ONLY taking pictures with pets, and if the family had some kids, yeah, they could get their picture taken too.
How to explain to a wailing 4 year old that he is not allowed to get his picture taken with Santa that night because we don’t have a pet. I almost broke down and bought one that night, despite my husband’s allergies!
In hindsight, I should have “borrowed” a pet that day anyway–it would have made a great story for years.
My son sobbed and screamed in almost every photo we ever had taken with Santa – I guess those “Stranger Danger” talks really worked…
Oh, I love that picture. It’s so classic – I hope you sent that out as a Christmas card. Well, no I don’t. Your son might not like it. Still, it’s classic.
And you’d think by now they’d have invented some streamlined method of getting your photo with Santa so you don’t ever have to wait in line.
Brady hates Santa.