Santa Claus has left the building
Last night we had a holiday gathering at our house to do our Secret Santa exchange. The house was full of people and there was food and wrapping paper flying all over the place. I enjoyed watching all the kids (and adults) opening their presents with delight. Unfortunately we were having so much fun that we forgot to take pictures. Yes, that is some serious funage being had because we are all camera-holics, so for us ALL to have forgotten, well, what can I say? Extravaganza indeed. I only managed to get a couple of pictures of Sophie and Christian in their PJ's after all the excitement was over (will add them later).
There were so many presents exchanging hands at once, that it was sheer chaos. I grabbed Christian's presents and scampered to the nearest unoccupied corner of the room and hid them like a squirrel hoarding nuts. I can't open presents in chaos...I need to put them aside and open them in peace and quiet. Tonight I'll "help" Christian open his presents and I'll take a couple of snapshots for posterity's sake.
On Saturday I took Christian to our community's club house as they had been advertising in giant signs that Santa was coming to meet the children from 10:30 am until 1:30 pm. Chris took his morning nap at 10 am, had lunch at noon, I cleaned him up, changed him, and got him all dressed up to go see Santa. I figured he didn't know or care about who this scary bearded person was, but at least I would try and see if I could get a picture of him on Santa's lap (mind you, he sometimes doesn't even want daddy to hold him, so yes, this was definitely wishful thinking on my part).
It was about 12:45 when I left my house to go pick my mom up (so she could help me with the child-restraining/picture-taking); we got to the clubhouse promptly at 1pm. Since it had been raining, there weren't mobs of children outside, so I figured we had Santa all to ourselves. We parked the car alongside another family who had even brought a video camera..(crap...I didn't bring the video camera!). We all got out of our cars with the Christmasy dressed children in tow and walked up the steps of the establishment.
All was merry and bright until the reindeer crap hit the fan when Mr. Guy Security promptly informed us that Santa had left:
Me: "what do you mean he left?...like on a break you mean right?
Guard: "no, he's gone, he just left about 5 minutes ago"
Me: "but the sign says until 1:30!...and it's 1!"
At this point the video camera family is now listening in on this conversation. Needless to say, that lady was pissed off too. We went inside to find the responsible party ("the office manager") and let her have it: 4 children sulking, 3 babies crying, 2 mother's yelling and a video camera in a pear tree. The end result of it was that we were just out of luck. Since it had been raining, no one had shown up for the past 20 minutes, so they told Santa he could go. The lady kept saying over and over again that we were right and that she was so sorry, and what did we want her to do about it because there really was nothing she could do. Leave it to my mom to say "yeah there is, YOU go put a Santa Suit on!". Hee hee. Go mom. We made the best of a bad situation and took pictures of Christian in Santa's empty chair.
I ended up driving to my local mall to shell out 14 bucks for a picture with Santa (what a rip). And not even a nice smiley one either, a crying-why-are-you-making-me-sit-on-this-scary-man's-lap picture, then again, I kind of knew that would happen. Last year's picture was so easy.... I hope next year's is better.
There were so many presents exchanging hands at once, that it was sheer chaos. I grabbed Christian's presents and scampered to the nearest unoccupied corner of the room and hid them like a squirrel hoarding nuts. I can't open presents in chaos...I need to put them aside and open them in peace and quiet. Tonight I'll "help" Christian open his presents and I'll take a couple of snapshots for posterity's sake.
On Saturday I took Christian to our community's club house as they had been advertising in giant signs that Santa was coming to meet the children from 10:30 am until 1:30 pm. Chris took his morning nap at 10 am, had lunch at noon, I cleaned him up, changed him, and got him all dressed up to go see Santa. I figured he didn't know or care about who this scary bearded person was, but at least I would try and see if I could get a picture of him on Santa's lap (mind you, he sometimes doesn't even want daddy to hold him, so yes, this was definitely wishful thinking on my part).
It was about 12:45 when I left my house to go pick my mom up (so she could help me with the child-restraining/picture-taking); we got to the clubhouse promptly at 1pm. Since it had been raining, there weren't mobs of children outside, so I figured we had Santa all to ourselves. We parked the car alongside another family who had even brought a video camera..(crap...I didn't bring the video camera!). We all got out of our cars with the Christmasy dressed children in tow and walked up the steps of the establishment.
All was merry and bright until the reindeer crap hit the fan when Mr. Guy Security promptly informed us that Santa had left:
Me: "what do you mean he left?...like on a break you mean right?
Guard: "no, he's gone, he just left about 5 minutes ago"
Me: "but the sign says until 1:30!...and it's 1!"
At this point the video camera family is now listening in on this conversation. Needless to say, that lady was pissed off too. We went inside to find the responsible party ("the office manager") and let her have it: 4 children sulking, 3 babies crying, 2 mother's yelling and a video camera in a pear tree. The end result of it was that we were just out of luck. Since it had been raining, no one had shown up for the past 20 minutes, so they told Santa he could go. The lady kept saying over and over again that we were right and that she was so sorry, and what did we want her to do about it because there really was nothing she could do. Leave it to my mom to say "yeah there is, YOU go put a Santa Suit on!". Hee hee. Go mom. We made the best of a bad situation and took pictures of Christian in Santa's empty chair.
I ended up driving to my local mall to shell out 14 bucks for a picture with Santa (what a rip). And not even a nice smiley one either, a crying-why-are-you-making-me-sit-on-this-scary-man's-lap picture, then again, I kind of knew that would happen. Last year's picture was so easy.... I hope next year's is better.
posted by Claudia at 4:11 PM
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