The Good Stuff: "The Year" or "The First Of Many Years"

I've heard that every child has "the year" when it comes to visiting Santa. You know...it's the year when your kid is totally freaked out by the idea of sitting on an old bearded man's lap in the mall. Yep - this was the year! And, knowing Davis, this may not be the only year. So, it's either "the year" or "the first of many years".

We got to the Cherry Creek Mall at 9:30 am yesterday (December 5th). I'm a bit of a Santa snob so it HAD to be Cherry Creek mall. After all, they have the best Santa and the theme is The Polar Express...our favorite holiday movie! If you haven't seen it, you should know that the photos below don't do it justice. There are snow globes you walk through that are all interactive in the theme of The Polar Express (movie clips, the conductor controls and a snowfall that you can walk through). I really should have taken more photos; but as you can see from the photos below we had a major melt-down during and after our visit with Santa.

By the way, the photos with Santa are a rip off but are totally worth it because you HAVE to have the photo. We paid $17 for four tiny 3x4 photos. Well, let me rephrase that. We paid $34 for eight tiny 3x4 photos. Why? Because I didn't go with my instincts. Let me explain. We sat Davis down on Santa's lap and he totally freaked out. When I looked at the photo on the screen (they ask you to look at it to see if you want to take it over) I thought to myself - yeah, that's cool, he may be totally freaking out but it captured the moment. Then the lady said "we can one of the family if you'd like". So, I thought - okay, let's try it. We took a family photo (meanwhile there are 50 people waiting in line behind us and we didn't want to be "that family" who retook 20 photos to get the perfect one). When I looked at the photo on the screen it looked great. There! Quick decision made! I pick the family photo. After we paid for the photo we looked at it closely and realized that Eric's eyes were half closed. Shoot! $17 for THIS? So, yadda, yadda, yadda, the rest of the story involves me being mad at myself for not just telling them to print the photo of him alone, mad at Eric for blinking, and mad that I felt so rushed that I didn't think through a good decision. The rest of the story also involves me working my way back through exit line to talk the photographer and cashier into printing the photo of him crying. Voila! I have the photo I always wanted but didn't know it at the time. The lesson in all of this? Go with your gut even (or rather, especially) if it means you get the photo of the kid crying in Santa's lap.