Meeting Santa

Before we headed out of town I decided to bite the bullet and take the kids to meet Santa.  The set up at the mall these days didn't seem  like a bad deal to me.  Once you arrive you get a ticket with a return time on it so you never have to stand in line with your kids.  Not too shabby huh? I figured if we arrived at 8:00 surely we would only have a couple hours to kill at the mall. WRONG! Crazy people line up at 6:00 in the morning (they don't even start handing out the time slips until 7:30).  Our time to meet Santa wasn't until 1:00.  Unfortunitly I had decided to go to a mall about 45 minutes from our house, one I had never been to before. Surely I thought a mall this big and nice would have a kids play area. WRONG again! I really have to stop assuming things.  Next lesson learned was that it would have been better to lose my good parking place and take the kids to McDonads for 4 hours instead of trying to keep them happy within the mall.  It will be a long time before I go back to the mall with my kids :).  Finally after our 100,000th lap around the mall it was time to meet Santa.  Chase really enjoyed his time with Santa, Leah on the other hand....

Not too bad, giving him the "who the heck are you" look...

Now we are switching to "this is terrifying mom"...

"Let me down now".....

and finally, "Mommy, I want you now!"


So Lessons learned from this little adventure:
1. Leave the kids at home with husband or someone while I go pick up the time slip. Then come home get the kids ready and arrive at the mall just in time to meet santa.
2.  Don't make the little ones sit with Santa, see if they can sit on something close by so there is still a chance for a cute picture without traumatizing your child.
3. If I do #1 it solves all the other issues of the morning!

Hope everyone else had as much fun taking their kids to see Santa as I did :).