The Dreaded “Meet Santa” Photo Opportunity: Vanessa & Allison’s 2011 Experiences

Every year since joining Facebook, I (Allison) love Christmas time for the shear fact that I get to see all of my mommy friend’s failed attempts at the dreaded “Meet Santa Claus Photo Opportunity”. The age range for this debacle is typically 8 months to 3 years and most children don’t disappoint…mouth is gaped open, tears streaming down their totally red face, arms stretched out, legs stretched out, and a look of terror as they stare into the eyes of a usually smiling and jolly Santa.

Keeping the above in mind… here are co-founders, Vanessa and Allison’s Santa experiences. We feel the need to include both since they are so vastly different!

Allison:

Lincoln is a fairly laid back kiddo, but even the most laid back children seem to be frightened at the site of Santa Claus. So I wasn’t too sure how he would handle Saint Nick. His first Christmas he was only 4 months so that was easy peasy. He just laid there. But this year he’s 16 months old and has opinions, feelings, lungs aka the ability to wail, and a vocabulary. He got to meet Santa for the first time this year when we went to the Barton Creek Resort and Spa tree lighting ceremony, but it was brief and he was tired, but it went okay.

This past week I took Lincoln to visit Santa for his photo opp. I was fully prepared for kicking, screaming, tears, and wailing. I decided to go during the afternoon to avoid the lines as well as the embarrassment should he behave the way a lot of the children I see with Santa in his age range.

Well, our experience is pretty damn boring… he was PERFECT! He sat right on Santa’s lap, looked at him once, looked all around, and then stared at the jingle bells being rang in an effort for him to look at the camera. We had a couple of outtakes with his fingers in his mouth, but I got a perfect smirk and told the camera lady that would work! Voila, here’s our Santa picture for Christmas 2011. The end. Here’s our outtake and final result.

Vanessa:

I know Caroline is my child, but I swear, she’s a supermodel in the making. The kid is such a ham!  After last year’s Santa success, I had high hopes for 2011. I got a custom (Santa approved) “C” shirt made, got Caroline some Santaesque sparkly Toms and off to the Domain we went.  Caroline is pretty outgoing so I wasn’t too concerned with the “Stranger Danger!” aspect of the Santa visit.  While we were waiting, we observed a little girl’s visit.  The kid wouldn’t smile to save a life…her parents were jumping and squealing and not a grin.  Finally they settled for an accidental smirk.  Matt and I rolled our eyes at these “amateurs” who couldn’t get their kid to smile.  Our turn…we approached Santa.  Cue blood curling scream.  Caroline nearly stripped Matt of his shirt she was holding on to him so tight.  Not only was she stripping my husband, she was screaming bloody murder, crying a river and kicking Santa.  Santa tried to settle her down by pulling an ornament from the tree and asking our daughter, “Do you like balls?” Yea–nice try Santa.  The answer is no! So there we are in Santa’s workshop with our child screaming at the top of her lungs–not what I was hoping for.  Being the great parents that we are, we quickly ran to the other side of the camera and starting jumping and squealing like the previous parents. After a solid three minutes of jumping, our quads were killing us and we weren’t getting anywhere.  We decided to call it quits.  Thanks to the snap-happy photographer, we were able to capture this beauty.  Caroline is covering the damn shirt I had made and looks like an amputee (no offense to amputees!).  Oh well….’tis the season for making memories and here’s to next year!

So is your kid a Lincoln or a Caroline when it comes to the whole Santa thing?