Santa Visit

On Sunday, I took Annika to the mall to get her picture taken with Santa. To prepare, we showed her pictures of Santa from years past and looked at books that had Santa. She was all set. On the way to the mall, Annika started saying, "No Sanka Claus. No Sanka Claus." Not a good sign. I told her we'd just go take a look and she didn't have to sit with him if she didn't want to. After waiting in line for an hour (mind you, there were only about 20 people in front of us), it was our turn. During our time in line, Annika played with the other kids a bit but was showing signs of fatigue. By the time we were at the front of the line, she had her head on my shoulder and was snuggling with her bunny.

I didn't want to wind up with a screaming child with Santa picture, so I took some advice from a friend (thanks, Joy!) who suggested the following idea many moons ago. We put Annika in Santa's chair and had Santa hide behind it so she wouldn't freak out. Then, Santa could peek around the chair for the photo. (Joy did this with one of her kids years ago and it resulted in a very cute picture.) Annika wasn't thrilled with the idea of me putting her down, but I was able to convince her to sit while I was (barely) out of the photo frame. We got a deer in the headlights photo for the second year in a row, but did avoid the screaming child picture, which was my goal.

Needless to say, glad I didn't wait on our Santa picture for this year's Christmas cards. Maybe we'll get a smile out of her next year. :)

(Doesn't she look tiny in that huge chair??)