Every year I make the trip at the crack of dawn to the mall to get a ticket to see Santa and then go back home once the kids are awake, take them back to the mall, and then again, wait our turn in line to see Santa. Its quite a process. This year we'd planned the same, but after a very long night the night before, I was almost ready to call it quits Sunday morning and say "Let's just go to the local mall." Don't get me wrong, the local mall is great. Its a huge mall and therefore, the Santa there is great. It just that our tradition is at NorthPark. All of Dylan's pictures so far have been there and they not only have a great Santa, they have the best setup and then there's the allure of the Trains at NorthPark (an elaborate, yet amazing, toy train exhibit) and the periodic plays of Scrooge & Friends puppets throughout the mall. So when the thought crept in my mind of giving up and going to the local mall, I thought of all the other that we usually see and experience at NorthPark and just couldn't give in.
So we made the trek to NorthPark, dropped the kids off at Russell's parents so that we could go and stand in line for our ticket. You must arrive about an hour or more ahead of time to get a ticket and its not a line for kids...in fact there were no kids in line with parents. Its boring, long, and early....a terrible mix for a kid of any age. Russell and I stood in line for over an hour and received our ticket. We made our way back to the mall at our designated time (about 5 hours later) and only had to wait about 15 minutes in line with the kids...much more manageable!!
The outcome was well worth everything! Dylan had been practicing his speech to Santa for a couple of days...."I want a McQueen race car remote!" The look on Santa's face was priceless...a what? In Dylan terms he's asking for a remote control Lightning McQueen.
We were so proud of Dylan. Two years ago he absolutely freaked out crying when he saw him...last year was better...but not great. He didn't scream & cry, but he just froze. To this year having him go up so confidently and tell him exactly what he wanted...he was a champ!...and he knew it!
Telling Santa about the "McQueen race car remote"
We were really unsure of how the Blake would react to Santa.
But after sitting there with big brother Dylan, he didn't freak out. He was hilarious...the entire time leading up to it, he'd been pointing out every single thing he'd seen in the mall and saying "DAH!"....it didn't stop at Santa...you can still see the pointed fingers.
*Disclaimer...our professional pictures were much better. With no Elmo in the picture and no yellow haze. Apparently, I'm not so great with the new camera yet...and need some work!
We had no idea of what his reaction by himself would be, but his expression was priceless.
Looks like he's about to sock him!
After the pictures, Dylan was on Cloud 9 and Blake seemed unfazed. We took the boys to the Trains at NorthPark and both loved it. After all the time and effort for a very tired mommy & daddy, the whole trip was definitely worth every bit of it!
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