Friday, December 11, 2009

Crying Out to Santa Claus

The following was actually part of a scrapbook/journal I keep for my kids every month. I thought I'd share it.


We took the boys to Genesee Valley mall Wednesday. Heidi had a day off. They played in the play area for about an hour. Then we set out for lunch in the food court.

We came upon their Santa set up. No one was there at that moment. Santa and the photo lady waved at us. Then Owen noticed Santa. He immediately started straining against Heidi’s grasp, stretching as close as he could. We were about 25 feet away. He started shouting his Christmas list at Santa, “I want a square Bakugan. A red one and a brown one. I want a Megatron and Bulk Head.” We couldn’t help but laugh. We explained to him that he needed to actually sit on Santa’s lap, but we couldn’t do it that day.

The malls are another example of a dying business model that doesn’t seem to want to change to save itself. They still charge way too much to visit Santa. They ban taking your own photos. They almost insist on the purchase of their photos. The cheapest mall photo we found was a 5x7 for $13. No thanks.

Even if saving their own image were off the table, they could be kind and take into consideration that many families are financially strapped this year. No such luck.

We’re planning on a Santa visit out in Lapeer this coming Tuesday. For $5 both of our kids can see Santa and Mrs. Claus. They take a 4x6 photo for us, and we can take as many other photos as we want.

It was fun to watch the other kids sitting on Santa’s lap. We had a good view from the food court. They’d shyly share their lists. You could see how timid each kid initially was. Santa would set them down, hand them a coloring book, and this love would break out over them. You could see it physically happen. They’d lose all fear. Their arms would fly up to hug Santa. It was great.


It finally dumped snow on us Wednesday night. I decided to take the boys out for a few minutes Thursday afternoon. It was cold though, about 15˚.

Owen tried to do all of the warm weather activities he had been doing in recent months, often sitting on snow covered riding toys. He was wet and cold very soon.

Gage refused to wear his mittens. He slowly walked around the backyard. He grabbed a few bare handed scoops of snow, clearly disliking it. After about five minutes, he walked into the middle of the grassed portion of our backyard, looked up at me and started crying.

I took him inside, where he started to cry harder. He wanted to be outside. It was like he was protesting reality. He was told he could go outside, but the outside I had taken him to was a harsh, cold place that wasn’t fun to be in.

I tried to calm both kids with some hot cocoa, but it was too hot. I just couldn’t win.

No comments:

Post a Comment