I’m no expert, in fact my kid still has the factory warranty, she is so new. However we are doing as much with her as possible even if she won’t remember it when she grows up. However we have photo memories of our adventures that we can show her.

Take meeting Santa…

Eva is little over 2 months old and doesn’t quite differentiate between people yet, so when we took her to meet Santa she was a perfect little angel. No crying no screaming and she didn’t even spit up on Santa (she did however spit up all over her cute outfit that we were going to use for the photograph so we had to change her prior to leaving the house). Yeah we were lucky. We heard about a local restaurant that just started up and they were having Santa appear for photos that afternoon. We decided to go get lunch and a photo or two. Here is the photo as well as my audio recount of taking the photo.

If this holiday season you are going to take the little one to meet Santa here are some tips.

1.) – Don’t go at the child’s nap time, they are going to be cranky, trek over after the nap, when they are still a little groggy, keep ’em confused.

2.) – Don’t go when it is peak time, once the work day is over and school gets out there is gonna be a line and if you get cranky after standing in line too long imagine a hyperactive kid forced to stand in line for 20-30 minutes, bad scene.

3.) Look locally and avoid the mall, check your newspaper for Santa visits. When I was growing up there was a place called London’s department store (yeah I’m old enough to remember actual department stores.) There was a Santa at this store every year and my mom would take the three of us kids to go meet him. I’m not sure if we had to pay for the photos with Santa but we got them every year. Polaroids I think (you know the instant images pre-digital age.) If you go to the mall you’re going to be distracted by the giant layout for Santa’s village. That never makes it into the picture in fact it just serves to draw you into the Santa trap of paying $14.95 for a photo with Santa taken by some hack who will probably cut off your head. Avoid the mall if you can.

4.) Bring your own camera, if the Santa photos are a fundraiser donate to the fundraiser and ask if you can take your own photos. If it isn’t busy you could get a little extra face time with Santa and get a very special shot.

5.) Talk to Santa too. Good Santa’s like the one we had said hello to Mom and Dad like we were old friends. If your Santa doesn’t initiate conversation you could start by saying “Santa it is nice to see you again, this is our son/daughter ____ he/she has been very good this year.” If he is a Santa worth his salt he will pick up on this.

6.) Our Santa told us to keep the photo of Eva and Santa on the fridge so she could see throughout the year that she had her photo taken with Santa. That way she wouldn’t be unfamiliar with the concept next year.

Well, take these tips for what they are worth, next year I’ll report on our visit with Santa again. Hopefully things will go smoothly like they did this year.