Well, here I am--getting my first post started. My goal is to blog weekly, but since I am 90% awesome, don't be too surprised if it way more erratic than that. Some weeks I might blog every day, and then I might disappear for a few weeks. Again, this is where the 90% awesome comes in.
Today I want to chat about my day yesterday. Yesterday began like most Sundays do around my house, the children waking my husband and I up because we mistakenly thought that letting our kids stay up late the night before would yield a later wake up time. You would think we would have learned our lesson by now, but alas we have not.
We decided to go visit Santa in an effort to avoid any crowds. A little background on our local Santa: we have two different locations to visit Santa in our town, one at the local mall which costs like a million dollars for a photo (or more like $40, but come on!) and another Santa at another mall (mall is a huge stretch, it's more like a giant office building with 4 stores) who is more affordable (a total bargain at $10 a photo).
I cannot vouch for the mall Santa experience as I am way too cheap to pay $40 for a single photo, but the more affordable Santa (I cannot call him the cheap Santa as I don't want any coal in my stocking this Christmas) is a one of a kind experience. He takes time to really talk with my children AND he actually remembers them from year to year.
As a result of this time and attention, the line to visit with Santa is INSANE. I'm talking at LEAST a 45 minute wait on a GOOD day. We naively thought we would be all sneaky and get there 30 minutes before Santa hours began--when all the good families are still in church (my religious beliefs are an entirely other topic and blog post for later).
So we get our kids up and looking presentable (which is about 90% of where they probably could have been, but 90% is our life so...) and load them up to head there. We get there and realize the doors to the "mall" are all locked. We decide to wait it out so we can be one of the first people in line when they unlock the doors. My children were behaving remarkably well so we waited patiently in the cold until the property manager comes and unlocks the doors.
We walk in, eager with anticipation, and as we round the corner to Santa see the line. I'm not talking about one or two families, I am talking 50-60 families all waiting in line. Waiting in line to the LOCKED mall. @$%*! There were literally not enough swear words in my vocabulary to express my frustration.
My response? (I try very hard never to swear around my kids and have them learn words they hopefully don't already know straight from the human tasked with being their moral compass) I calmly grab my kids hands and lead them back out the way we came, all while they are screaming "WHAT ABOUT SANTA?" at the top of their lungs and straight to the car.
There is nothing quite as painful (and later expensive as I shamefully bought my kids a small toy to distract them) than having to explain to two very excited young kids that we were going to have to go back to see Santa when the line went down. We did go back later than afternoon (sorry homework, you'll have to wait until tomorrow) and waited for precisely 1 hour to visit with Santa.
I will wait that 1 hour (although that is probably the maximum amount of time I would have waited) for the beautiful experience we had. My son and daughter had the typical interaction of telling Santa what they wanted for Christmas, but then my son looked Santa deep in the eyes and said "What do you want for Christmas Santa?" (Again, best children on the planet here) and I lost it.
In the middle of the mall. In front of Santa, I cried big tears. My sweet, tender hearted 8 year old was more concerned about what Santa wanted for Christmas than he was about what he wanted. And I swear I saw Santa tear up to as he described his wish for all children to have a happy and joy filled holidays with their families and loved ones.
All of my anger and frustration just melted away and I left the mall with the hope and joy spilling out of my heart. Until I went to the grocery store later that night...but that's a normal reaction to grocery shopping on the weekends, right?
Today I want to chat about my day yesterday. Yesterday began like most Sundays do around my house, the children waking my husband and I up because we mistakenly thought that letting our kids stay up late the night before would yield a later wake up time. You would think we would have learned our lesson by now, but alas we have not.
We decided to go visit Santa in an effort to avoid any crowds. A little background on our local Santa: we have two different locations to visit Santa in our town, one at the local mall which costs like a million dollars for a photo (or more like $40, but come on!) and another Santa at another mall (mall is a huge stretch, it's more like a giant office building with 4 stores) who is more affordable (a total bargain at $10 a photo).
I cannot vouch for the mall Santa experience as I am way too cheap to pay $40 for a single photo, but the more affordable Santa (I cannot call him the cheap Santa as I don't want any coal in my stocking this Christmas) is a one of a kind experience. He takes time to really talk with my children AND he actually remembers them from year to year.
As a result of this time and attention, the line to visit with Santa is INSANE. I'm talking at LEAST a 45 minute wait on a GOOD day. We naively thought we would be all sneaky and get there 30 minutes before Santa hours began--when all the good families are still in church (my religious beliefs are an entirely other topic and blog post for later).
So we get our kids up and looking presentable (which is about 90% of where they probably could have been, but 90% is our life so...) and load them up to head there. We get there and realize the doors to the "mall" are all locked. We decide to wait it out so we can be one of the first people in line when they unlock the doors. My children were behaving remarkably well so we waited patiently in the cold until the property manager comes and unlocks the doors.
We walk in, eager with anticipation, and as we round the corner to Santa see the line. I'm not talking about one or two families, I am talking 50-60 families all waiting in line. Waiting in line to the LOCKED mall. @$%*! There were literally not enough swear words in my vocabulary to express my frustration.
My response? (I try very hard never to swear around my kids and have them learn words they hopefully don't already know straight from the human tasked with being their moral compass) I calmly grab my kids hands and lead them back out the way we came, all while they are screaming "WHAT ABOUT SANTA?" at the top of their lungs and straight to the car.
There is nothing quite as painful (and later expensive as I shamefully bought my kids a small toy to distract them) than having to explain to two very excited young kids that we were going to have to go back to see Santa when the line went down. We did go back later than afternoon (sorry homework, you'll have to wait until tomorrow) and waited for precisely 1 hour to visit with Santa.
I will wait that 1 hour (although that is probably the maximum amount of time I would have waited) for the beautiful experience we had. My son and daughter had the typical interaction of telling Santa what they wanted for Christmas, but then my son looked Santa deep in the eyes and said "What do you want for Christmas Santa?" (Again, best children on the planet here) and I lost it.
In the middle of the mall. In front of Santa, I cried big tears. My sweet, tender hearted 8 year old was more concerned about what Santa wanted for Christmas than he was about what he wanted. And I swear I saw Santa tear up to as he described his wish for all children to have a happy and joy filled holidays with their families and loved ones.
All of my anger and frustration just melted away and I left the mall with the hope and joy spilling out of my heart. Until I went to the grocery store later that night...but that's a normal reaction to grocery shopping on the weekends, right?
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