Last year we were not successful in getting a photo of Ella with Santa. She was absolutely petrified of him. I even bought a Santa suit home from work and thought that perhaps if Tim put it on and she recognised his voice, she might be more inclined to go to him.... I was wrong.
This year we started talking about Santa early on in the piece. I didn't force it upon her but casually started talking about and reading books about Santa and Christmas and each time she got a little more excited. I was excited that she was 'understanding' a bit about Christmas and Santa because for kids it is such a magical time but I must admit I was actually dreading having to take the kids to get their photo taken as I had envisaged having to wait in a queue for way too long with hundreds of screaming babies and impatient children. To try to avoid this I dressed the kids up super early one weekday morning and left for the shops in hope that we would be the first in the queue. We weren't quite first in queue when we got there but there were only two other families in front of us so we didn't have to wait too long. We watched as other children sat on Santa's lap, most of whom cried, and I quietly prayed that Ella wouldn't throw a tantrum when we went up to Santa's sleigh.
Soon it was our turn and Santa ushered us up to his sleigh. Since she was so excited when we had talked and read about Santa I thought she would have gone nuts when we actually saw him in the flesh but as we walked up I could tell immediately that she wasn't that comfortable about the situation by the way she hid behind my dress. The Santa was lovely and tried to reassure her but she just kept her eyes straight ahead and avoided any eye contact with the man in the red suit and held my hand tightly. I had to sit with her in the sleigh because there was no way that she was going to allow me to leave her with Santa on her own. Lucas on the other hand just sat there smiling the whole time as per usual. After a few attempts to get Ella to laugh the photographer took some shots and I was pleasantly surprised by them. I think the pictures are perfect, except that daddy is not in the shot but we both agreed that going on a weekend would be a nightmare with the crowds and neither of us were up for that.
Santa asked her what she would like for christmas but again, he got the no eye contact and silent treatment. I told her that I would let him know that she had been a very good girl and would like a pony. Yikes, how am I going to pull that one off??
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