Hello, Santa

We went to see Santa today and it went almost exactly the same way last year did. For those who don't know what happened in 2012, here is a quick recap: Adrianna freaked out and refused to go anywhere near Santa... we spent nearly 2 hours walking around looking at the displays and saying 'hi' to Santa every now and then to get her comfortable. In the end, the best pic we managed to get was her sitting in Santa's chair and him crouched next to her while we wasn't paying attention.

So yeah, we went back this year to the same place with the same Santa (who is awesome, btw) to get our pics taken. I've been dreading this day for the past 11 months. I tried to prepare Adrianna by watching YouTube videos of Santa/songs, looking at pics of him, talking about going to give him a hug and get a picture. She was pretty excited about it... until it was our turn in line. Once we got about 5 feet out, she clung to my neck like a baby koala, dug in, and refused to let go. Her eyes saddened and she proclaimed that she was "Done!".

Having experienced Masklophobia (fear of people in costumes) myself at young age and being forced to pose with such characters, I surrendered to her demands to get away from him. Honestly, I couldn't blame her. In fact, in preparation for this photo session, I Googled "How to overcome fear of Santa" and found this:

"The worst thing you can do is force your child to sit on Santa's lap for a picture -- you might only make matters worse. "You'll not only likely wind up with a disappointing photo, but pushing the issue can potentially cause some psychological harm to your child," warns Andrew Adesman, M.D., chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medial Center of New York. "There might be emotional distress coupled with the implicit message that she cannot control with whom she is physically intimate." Rather than get into a power struggle with your child, respect her wishes."

Instead of forcing her to sit on Santa's lap, we did the same thing we did last year... ease into it. We walked around the store and looked at the train set, played with some remote control cars, and took some pics of our own in front of the winter scenery. Eventually we wandered back toward Santa who greeted her with a candy cane. She happily snatched it up and was intrigued by Santa's next offer - jingle bells! She followed him over to his chair and before she knew it, we were on his lap snapping a photo. We even ended the day with a high-five!

I will post the pics at a later date (after Christmas cards go out!), but here's a high-five shot to hold you over...

Oh, and Natalie was just fine posing with Santa. No stranger danger for her I guess!