Bah Humbug!

The whole family took a jaunt to the mall this evening to see the right jolly ol' Saint Nick. Remember, the one made famous for spreading cheer across the globe, whose little round belly shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly?!?

Yeah, Santa. That's the one. Ho Ho Ho.

We stood in the long line. It's Santa afterall. Worth the wait, right?

10 minutes in--the kids are antsy. Stacey takes Levi on a walk. I make Luke and Abby pose for photos from the back side of the Isle o' Santa, the children positioned right in front of the booty of a 12 foot tall reindeer. One of the elfs, or is it elves? chastises me for taking illegal photos of their display, committing the unpardonable sin of using my flash.

25 minutes in--The people behind us don't understand issues of "personal space". I get rammed a baker's dozen times by their stroller...no apologies.

40 minutes in--Stacey's back. Levi's crying. Abby misbehaves and after a swift correction she's in tears as well.

55 minutes in--We finally make it to the front of the line. All 3 of our kids are making snowballs out of confetti and chucking them at each other. Levi grabs an enormous handful of cotton from the display and enters the fray.

58 minutes in--the kids who were on Santa's lap before us exit, and our kids storm Kris Kringle, and--get this--he says, "Hold it right there. A guy's gotta have some space already. You don't understand. It gets 110 degrees in this suit." The kids are speechless. I'm dumbstruck. After a minute, 45 seconds of oscillating fan up his sleeves, Bad Santa invites the kids onto his lap, smiles dutifully for the camera, asks what they want for Christmas, and doles out coloring books, until we exit and he takes another minute 45 aeration pitstop.

On the ride home, Luke says, "There's no way that guy was Santa. He was mean, and his belly wasn't fat enough." I chime in, "His beard was way too short and scraggly." Abby adds, "Not puffy enough." We all agree the fake Mr. Claus was probably the Grinch dressed up in a Santa suit. In the end, however, at least we got the overpriced studio quality photo out of it.