Santa Fiasco

With it being William’s first Christmas that I don’t have him under lockdown and house arrest (i.e., meaning that people actually get to see more than just the top of his head while I’m wearing him), we decided it would be a good opportunity to get his picture with Santa.  He has no issues with strangers, in fact he reels them in with smiles and laughs.  In particular, he loves older people — the grayer the hair the better the experience is.  Glasses?  Bring them closer.  Shaky voices, stooped shoulders and frowning wrinkles that melt into smiles upon beholding William’s radiant smile — perfection!  So we figured Santa would be a non-issue.

We went to the mountains earlier this month, and there is a Santa that makes appearances in a little shack up there by their big Christmas tree. Not just Santa, but Mrs. Claus, too. What could be better?  So we’re walking up to the shack and William is all smiles and happy. We get to the entrance, and he lost it.  Hated it.  Didn’t want to be in that shack or near the shack or anywhere around that shack.  If he saw the shack, all smiles disappeared.  We know this because we tried twice, once with Tony holding him and once with me holding him.  Oh, and since this Santa and Mrs. Claus are Hispanic, they are clearly imposters.  Anyone in the know knows that Santa and and his wife are as white as snow and, obviously, William is a genius, so he knows.

Later, walking the town, we came across a window painting of Santa and in the interest of familiarizing him with the colors of Santa, we allowed William to get close to it.  Getting close then evolved into William laughing while punching the window painting’s nose.  While probably not something we should have encouraged (Imaginary conversation:  “Hi Santa, Can my son pop you in the nose so he’ll smile while we take a picture of you two?”), we considered this an improvement.

A couple weeks later, we went to a neighborhood that decks its sidewalks and houses in seasonal accoutrements.  One of those houses had a realistic robotic Santa, William was in his stroller — a contraption that he’s familiar with and loves, so we thought we’d give the picture another try.  Even a non-living Santa was an epic fail.  (sigh)

We decided to stop messing around with imposters and robots, and just go visit the real one at the Queen Mary’s Chill event.  We’ll consider this a success and one that I’m happy putting in the baby book.

Or maybe this one.

Or maybe both.  I do like to agonize over these things, you know.

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas!  (More Christmas pictures:  LINK)