Jack's first two Santa photos were perfect. The first one was taken when he was less than 2 months old, and he slept the entire time. The second one was taken last year, and he was so happy and friendly. He went right up to Santa, sat on his lap, and smiled beautifully for the camera. A guy behind me in line actually commented, "I've never seen a child that age actually like Santa." We went to the UTC mall both years, and it was the same Santa Claus each time.
We went back to the UTC mall a couple of weeks ago, and I was thrilled to see that "our" Santa was back again. Jack, however, was not so thrilled. He didn't want to sit on this strange man's lap, especially not without Mommy. I sat down next to Santa with him, but, even though that made it better, it didn't make it better enough to warrant a smile. There was no crying, just no smiles. I decided that we would try again another time when Daddy was with us to serve as reinforcements.We went back to Santa yesterday, and my heart sank when I saw that the Santa who works the weekends is not the same one we took pictures with the last two years (which I realize now were both taken on a weekday). I was tempted to bail on the whole deal, but we'd come all this way just for this and Tom always works during the week. I figured we'd give it a try.
Well, the result was the same as it would have been had we just gone ahead and taken the picture during the week with our original Santa. Jack wasn't screaming or crying - which actually might have made for a cuter photo - but he just kind of sat there like a lump with an unhappy expression on his face. The photographers were very nice and let us spend a lot of time trying to get him to smile, but to no avail. Weirdly, for the first few minutes, he had his arms out like Frankenstein and wouldn't put them down. And that was the pose that was captured for posterity.
So the streak is broken. Different Santa, unhappy Jack. I think I'm ok with the different Santa. The longer we went with the same Santa every year, the more heartbroken I'd be once we got a new one. Now the pressure is off. And I guess we'll just try to start another streak of happy Jack pictures next year.
3 comments:
Noooooooo! There's time to go back and get another picture with the weekday Santa, right?
Awww, well at least he wasn't screaming in the pictures you did get! We will be taking Jakob and Samantha in the next couple of days, so we will see how they do!
We had the same experience this year. Last year we had great pictures with Santa (and the Easter Bunny). This year, she chose not to sit on his lap at all!
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