Santa Experience 2011

We headed to one of the local malls this morning in an attempt to take Jack to see Santa.  Mark and I weren't too sure if we wanted to attempt this, but when we asked Jack if he wanted to go he kept saying "Santa", nodding yes, and pointing.  I think he was more excited about the prospect of 'going' than anything else as, unlike his momma, this kid loves to go and do and be out of the house!  With our hearts melting from his affirmative response we made the trek to the mall. 

On the drive over, Mark predicted that there would be a long line, he likes to anticipate the worst and be surprised if the situation ends up being better than expected.  I reminded him that we visited Santa last year under the same conditions (late morning, during the day, the week leading up to Christmas) and there was NO wait.  Granted, it probably wasn't actually Christmas Eve Eve or the Friday before Christmas, but I had high hopes. 

We had little trouble finding a parking spot in one of the garages, which we thought was a good sign, only to enter the mall greeted by a mile long line of kids waiting to see Santa.  Apparently, 98.2% of all people at the mall at that time were expressly there to visit with Santa just as we were :-/

Although Mark would have been happy turning right back around and heading home we ultimately decided we'd just take a spot in line and see what happened.  Mark immediately left us to scout out the line situation and came back with bad news, it was LOOOONG!  According to one of Santa's elves we could expect an hour to an hour and a half wait time.

About 10 minutes into waiting Jack decided he was bored so Mark held our place while I took him for a lap around the mall in his stroller.  We returned to line, waited a few more minutes, and then did another lap.  When we returned Jack was no longer amused with the line situation.  Mark took a turn walking him around while I held our place and once they returned from their walk Jack went from silently disapproving of the situation to full on meltdown in about 3 seconds.  Even worse, we had only moved about 10 feet up in the never-ending line in the 30-40 minutes we had been doing this dance.

Faced with a Toddler Emergency of this magnitude we did the only thing we could and removed him from his stroller (I know, he was never getting back in that thing, but he was screaming, there was no other option).  I walked him up near the area where Santa was and Jack kept crying and pointing towards Santa.  When I asked him if he wanted to see Santa he nodded yes through his tears *heart breaks*  I explained to him that we had to wait in line if he wanted to see Santa (as if he had any clue what I was saying) and in the meantime, the parent whose kid was next in line to sit on Santa's lap casually mentioned to me that they had waited more than 2 hours to get to that point in the line. 

At this point we decided to throw in the towel and snapped a cell phone pic for photographic evidence of our 2011 Santa Experience.  Good thing too because no less than 2 minutes later Jack started signing that he was hungry and I had committed Mommy Sin #1 by only having about 8 Cheddar Bunnies in my bag and a sippy cup of water.  I was definitely counting on there being no wait to see Santa. 

So, we went to lunch instead, which was a much more fun experience than standing in line for 2 hours to see Santa.  I was excited to see how Jack reacted to Santa considering how excited he seemed about the whole thing, but chances are, with the age he is, he probably wouldn't have wanted any part of Santa's lap if we actually made it to that point. 

Lesson learned.  Next year we will have to be sure to attempt a Santa visit a little earlier!