A Visit to Santa

After a day of sledding on the "Carmel Hill" yesterday, we took Sam to meet Santa at Clay Terrace. They had a pretty swanky set-up, as Santa rested inside a little gingerbread house that had a Tom Roush car give-away parked right in front, insuring that no one could take a decent photograph.

Sam had a runny nose all day, which should have been red flag enough to postpone this event. He fell asleep in the car on the way there (5 minutes), so we took him into the sporting goods store to liven him up a bit -- his sleep coma remained. We decided to forge out into the snow and wait our turn to see Santa, with the shiny new Chevy parked outside the gingerbread house. There really was no line, just us and the Chevy.

After a few moments, I rapped on the door (because, after all, this is a Christmas story), and Santa's grouchy, middle-aged elf, let's call her Sheila, came outside and snarled, "It'll be a few minutes!"

We hadn't planned to purchase photographs, given Sam's slight cold and physical torpor, but I knew that Sheila was really trying to say, "We have paying customers in here!" I told Matt to get his credit card ready.

We decided to walk across the street and grab two coffees and a hot chocolate while we waited. While in the store, Matt realized that Sam's gym shoes (I completely forgot to buy the child snow boots!) were caked in mud, which was now covering the floor of the Gelato boutique. I tipped the guy three dollars because I knew he'd be responsible for mopping after we left.

We could see the paying customers leaving Santa's house, dressed in red sweaters, smiling as snowflakes gently landed on their faces. We gave Sam's nose a good wiping and headed back to wonderland.

I'd dressed Sam like the little brother wearing all the winter gear in the movie A Christmas Story. Layers upon layers I'd layered, and it was beginning to hit me that this might be causing Sam's state-of-mind. "He's hot!" I said to my husband, and so right there in front of God and everyone (Santa, Sheila, two girls taking expensive photographs), I began stripping Sam down.

Sam had no interest in Santa after he'd told him about the big green gun and fishing pole that he wanted, but we tossed him on Santa's lap, anyway. Sheila tried using some kind of baby rattle to entice a smile from Sam, but he wasn't having it. "Snap, snap, snap!" Three horrible digital photographs. The girl turned her computer screen so that we could see how awful the photographs were, and she knocked my large coffee off the table, and onto Santa's floor.

Sheila seemed really pissed. We were down $11.00 at this point, and still had to buy a picture.

Sheila threw Matt and me into the frame along with Santa and Sam and yelled, "Smile!" We heard one more snap, and that was it. That was going to be our Christmas photograph, no matter what.

"It's terrible," Matt said, "We're not giving this to anyone!"

We shall not speak of this experience again.