I don't remember many of the details, other than we waited forever because we got held up that morning despite my best effort to get out of the house first thing. But the picture turned out amazing!
I learned my lesson waiting in the ridiculous line and the following year I looked up the times, and we were determined to be there before Santa arrived. Unfortunately the website didn't have the times listed accurately and were at the mall about two hours early. No one was in line, so we hit the play area for a while. We decided to go for a cup of coffee and bathroom break about 45 minutes before Santa arrived. Still no one in line. Fifteen minutes later there were suddenly at least 20 people in line ahead of us. So not only did we wait for about two hours, I then stood in line for another hour to get this gem:
And after this Steve and I heard for a full year about how "Santa is nice. But I don't want to sit on his lap! I cry!" She was obviously traumatized. In fact we were walking through the mall back in early November and I was surprised to see Santa was already there. As we walked by and Evelyn realized he was there, she latched onto my leg and I had to carry her past. I did manage to get her to wave, but there was NO WAY she was going to get anywhere near the man.
When December rolled around, it was time to think about visiting Santa. If I'm being perfectly honest, the picture with Santa seems to be way more important to Steve. He always seems to be the one to bring up making the visit, which made me think he wanted to be there for it. As we started to prepare for an early Saturday morning up and out of the house just weeks before Christmas, it was obvious we were both dreading it. We knew Evelyn wasn't going to participate willingly, we were sure we would be waiting in line no matter what we did, and it just wasn't going to be fun.
I proposed a different plan. As long as it was okay with Steve not being there, I would take Vivian to meet Santa one morning when Evelyn was at school. Hopefully during the week the lines would be minimal and there would be no drama if Evelyn wasn't there. Steve agreed, so one Monday morning I got Vivian all dressed in the same dress her sister wore, and we headed to the mall.
I got there about 20 minutes before Santa, and there was no one in line! I had been in this position before, though, so I lingered near Santa's "house". Just before 10:00 I noticed a few people in line so I entered the queue. I was third. Not too shabby. We took the picture, and were back in the car by 10:17. It was the best Santa experience ever.
Same outfit down to the shoes (minus the headband...I was so sure that Evelyn wore the headband!). The camera person kept trying to get Vivian to look and smile, but I told her to go with the looking at Santa pose knowing it would look even more like Evelyn's picture. And did you notice the "I love you" sign from Santa? At first I thought it was just a fluke, but then I started seeing all these posts of other people who had the same sign in their pictures, too. Santa really is the best!
