Life
/ December 2017

Why We Skip Pictures With Santa!

I am not sure why I thought going to the mall the day before Christmas Eve would be a good idea. We just wanted to get out of the house and maybe get pictures with Santa. We were met by insane amounts of traffic and people. The Erie mall is usually pretty dead, but it felt like we were in a busy NYC mall the day before Christmas Eve.

We quickly changed our minds about pictures with Santa after Zoey told us she really didn’t want to. I have always felt slightly disturbed by the tradition. Basically you pay a strange man to let your child sit on his lap. Many parents will even force their child, through tears, to sit on his lap, just for a picture. It doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t even make my children hug their grandparents if they don’t want to. Why would I force them to sit on a strangers lap just to get pictures with Santa?? It must not do too much harm, I have never heard of a kid needing therapy from the trauma of pictures with Santa. But I think it is just the principle of it that bothers me.

The kids were all dressed up in their Christmas best from Janie & Jack. I got them head to toe outfits for Christmas from Janie & Jack because they have the most irresistible styles, not to mention unbeatable quality. They looked adorable in their new clothes, so instead of pictures with Santa we got pictures of them and the beautiful Christmas tree, and the candy-land like displays around it. Oh, and they got pictures with me, which apparently was more traumatizing than Santa would have been… Zander was very upset that I wouldn’t let him escape into the crowds of people moving around us. The fact that he would have been trampled in a second didn’t seem to bother him. The picture below is me and Zoey trying (and failing) to intercept his escape plans…

Luckily Zoey was happy to smile in front of the tree for a picture. She was very proud of her new ‘princess dress’ from Janie & Jack. She is obsessed with the pom-pom headband too and wanted to show it off. I love her sweet poses and the fact that she loves getting pictures taken (sometimes). Zander is strongly opposed to anything that involves holding still for more than half a second, so smiling at the camera is always out. Every picture I have of him is a candid moment. Nothing is ever posed with Zander!

After the photos we went and bought cinnamon pretzels and played in the mall play area for a bit. The ‘mall playground’ is Zoey’s favorite place to visit in Erie, so we can’t leave the mall without stopping there. While we were there we discovered Zander LOVES slides. When we got home we pulled out Zoey’s old slide and within a ten minutes he had figured out how to climb the ladder and slide down all by himself. He is so much more adventurous than I am used to with Zoey. Zoey barely used the slide when she was two, she was ver cautious. At one year all Zander wants to do is go up and down it over and over. He can’t quite position himself correctly at the top so he tumbles backwards, forwards, sideways, upside-down… So long as he is flying down the slide he seems happy.