Santa Claus is comin' to town

Well we are gearing up for Christmas in a big way around here! The tree is up and decorated, the stockings are hung by the chimney with care and we all know that St. Nicolas soon will be here. Miss A had two close encounters with the bearded one. First of all, for all of you mothers and soon to be mothers, here is the best tip you will ever get for maintaining your holiday time sanity - take the first Monday in December (not the one after Thanksgiving, the one after that) off of work and do your Santa pictures that afternoon. We waited for one kid at the first Santa, and there was no line at the second. The toy stores were mellow, and the mall was pretty much empty. It was easy to manuever the stroller and we didn't have to stand around at all. I HIGHLY recommend it.

So as you're reading you're thinking, wait the first Santa? The second Santa? Are these people crazy? The answer would be, a little. Not as crazy as the mother we watched torture her 3 year old. We saw a little girl who was REALLY scared of Santa, and her mom was not havin' it, she was going to get the Santa picture, so while this poor little girl cried and screamed and begged not to have to go near the big scary guy in the red suit, her mom dragged her over, and belittled her for being scared. I don't think getting that picture is nearly as important as making your child feel safe. It was terrible.

We got Miss A dressed up in a very cute holiday dress, complete with white tights (yes, the kind with ruffles on the butt, for all you wanna be pageant moms, the term is rhumba tights)and little black Mary Janes.

So the first Santa was part of a charity deal and the lighting was not the best, and the picture was a little fuzzy, but Miss A looked super cute. Here it is:



So we see the picture and it is okay, but Santa leaves a little something to be desired. I knew that the Santa at the mall had a real beard, so we thought we'd try that out. We zipped over to the mall (it was Monday, so no traffic at the mall, hooray!) and walked right up to Santa. As soon as Miss A sat on his lap, she was scared and let us know how she felt. So having just witnessed crazy mom torture her little girl, we did not let Miss A sit there for more than about 30 seconds. So this is what we got:



Then, while we are picking out the pictures, Santa hit on Jason's Mom. I guess maybe Miss A knows who's been naughty or nice.

The last picture for the day is a photo illustration of why we need to live somewhere cold. How cute are kids in snow hats?