In The Hills, visiting Santa is billed as "An Experience". We arrived at Somerset at 9:30 am Sunday morning and walked up to the castle to make our "Santa Appointment". First available: 4:42 pm. Mind you, this was on December 14th. So we went and did a bit of shopping before going back home.
When we arrived back at The Santa Castle we were greeting to a mob of toddlers, babies and older children running around in their holiday-wear like court jesters flinging oversized checkers at one another. Lily promptly joined in the fun and tried her best to procure as many checkers as she could get her little hands on, even if it meant stealing them from very stoic little boys in the midst of a serious checkers match.
When it was time for our appointment I rounded Lily up and approached the Santa counter, Santa Pass (yep, that's what its called, I kid you not) in hand. The people at the Santa counter have pretty much the most powerful job in all of Oakland county during the holidays (think bouncer at the most exclusive club in NYC). When my Santa Pass was verified, we were allowed into the holding pen to wait our turn with the jolly elf. The holding pen contained numerous velvet-clad benches arrayed in a semi-circle facing the stairs that led to Santa. We walked into the pen and sat down on the bench closest to the entrance. "Oh, no, you can't sit here" a young Maiden admonished. "You have to sit here" she said, pointing to another bench 6 inches away from the bench we had chosen. Good grief. We then had to switch benches 4 more times to ensure that we were in the proper order amongst the rest of the lucky chosen in the holding pen.
When we finally moved to the final waiting bench, I knelt down in front of Lily. "What are you going to tell Santa you want for Christmas?" I asked. "Ba-bies!" she yelled. "And a choo-choo train!" she added, nodding her head. Good, I thought. All that practice was about to pay off! Young Maiden approached the top of the stairs..."Now presenting, Princess Lily!" she squeaked. We walked up the stairs to Santa. At this point, Lily looked at Santa, looked at Husband, and clenched tight to his jacket, her faced beginning to crumple. Uh, oh. I thought, picturing a photographer's nightmare. Quickly, I said to Lily in my most cheerful voice "Look! Its Santa!!!!! Blow him a kiss!". She did, and the rest was a mad blur of flashes and smiles as she sat on his lap, gave him a hug, and told him what she wanted for Christmas.
When it was all over, I happily skipped down the steps and shelled out $30 for these beautiful pics. Santa in The Hills may be a gigantic pain in the ass, but seeing my angelic child's face in these pictures make it all worth it.
1 comment:
I still think one of the shining moments of the day was when Lily tried to take those checkers from "those stoic checker playing boys." They were pissed and waaaaaay into their game. That was too funny. However, no fair, all the big kids had checkers and poor Lily who tried and tried kept on getting turned down at every attempt. She did get her checkers in the end though.
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