The 2013 Visit to Santa

So, as I mentioned yesterday, we took the boy to see Santa. We have taken him to see the NorthPark Santa the last two years, and wanted to do this again. Since my schedule involves a lot of evenings this time of year, we decided to take him one morning. The drill at NorthPark is you have to get a number, which gets you a place in line. They start handing out numbers at 9am. Santa doesn't start seeing children until 11am. 

We wanted to get an early number, so we arrived at 9am. We were handed number 17. Then, we went and took our family photos, went to have breakfast in the mall, went to visit the train exhibit, and then ended up back at Santa's house at 10:30 for his storytime. Then we lined up to see him. Two things further delayed this visit - first, a news crew was there and took up about 15 minutes interviewing Santa at 11am. Then, they have added a Santa video this year, which meant Santa was deliberately stringing out the visits to capture a "moment" with each child, so you will buy the video. This meant we didn't see Santa until about 11:45. I'll tell you more about that later. For now, on to the photos:

Let's pick it up from the trains.

LM was pretty excited to go in.

There are interactive buttons along the way that activate action in the exhibit.

Once LM found these, we had to go around and try all of them. At least twice.

Then, on to story time!

I sat down with LM - better than standing for this growing belly.

Then it was time to line up.

So, here is where the story takes a turn from previous years. When LM was 18 months old, and again when he was 2 and 1/2 years old, he could not WAIT to see Santa - I was holding him back - he was in awe of the guy and wanted to get at him as quickly as possible. This year - once we started lining up, LM wanted to back out. He started saying he was "scared" of Santa, and didn't want to see him. We told him there was no going back, and he was going to sit on Santa's lap. He seemed resigned to this fact. Then, when we got to the front of the line and Santa's helper asked us for our numbered sheet of paper, LM looked up and told him, "We are canceling." Um, no sir, we are not. We are going forward...so he was very hesitant when it was time to approach the man in red. Santa took care of that right away, putting him at ease and winning him over.

And there's the money shot.

Love this one too.

This is one of my photos. The more "blue" ones are the "official" photos.

Also new this year - each child received a book from Santa.

More time to record video...

And, like you had to ask - of course, I bought the video.

They saw this sucker coming from a mile off.

Actually, because I always buy the the digital files - because that's how I store my photos and the best way for me to find them later - it's worth the money to me to have the professional photo memories - since I spent that money, the video became very cheap. So, cough cough. I said sure, let me spend some more. He's only three once, right?

As it turns out, later that day, the cousins ended up going back to see Santa together for a group photo. Here is the official one of that, and a fun one Kim took outside that I just love:

LM looks so grown up here.

So sums up their sweet personalities right now!

So, there you have it. Our visit(s) to Santa for 2013.

See you soon.