Santastic!

A clever title made up by the author? Nope. It's the actual name of the Santa setup at the local mall. M and PrettyGirl went there while I was in class tonight.

I wanted M to write about the experience herself, as a guest poster, but she declined, so I'll try to do justice to the story, as told to me about an hour ago.

Santastic is more than just a guy in a Santa suit (and a real beard,) sitting in a big chair letting kids sit on his lap. It's a full-blown experience, giving the kids something to do while they wait for an audience with the big guy. First, you pass the Naughty or Nice Meter, an arrow on a gauge that, as you might expect, points either to Naughty or Nice or somewhere in between. The Santastic employees were urging PG to look at the meter, which perplexed M until they took the picture of PG next to it. Then a Santastic employee asked PG if she'd like to write Santa a letter (at the Letter Writing Station) or just make a Christmas wish for Santa. M reminded the Santastic employee that PG is, in fact, seven and a half months old. But it's part of the process, so M and PG went along with it. After writing your letter or deciding to skip the Letter Writing Station, you go to the mailbox and either put your letter in there or blow a kiss in there, representing your Christmas Wish. M went with just a Christmas Wish. She opened the mailbox, and the mailbox puffed out some snowflakes, causing PG's jaw to drop. And another picture was taken.

Finally, PG sat on Santa's lap and had four pictures taken. The picture featured here was Pose #4. Other poses showed PG staring at Santa like he was the most interesting being on Earth. Considering that the man had Christmas baubles in his beard, you'd be hard-pressed to argue her assessment of him.

Finally, it was time to buy the pictures. In addition to buying prints of various sizes of any of the four poses and/or the pre-Santa events, you could also buy a CD containing a low-res digital copy of whatever pose(s) you bought prints of or a CD containing high-res copies of every picture in the portfolio, with or without buying actual prints. M went with a 5x7 and a couple wallet-sized prints and the low-res CD of the above picture. I was initially disappointed to not see the other five pictures available, but they were asking a whole lot of money for those high-res CDs, so I'll live with picturing them in my head.

This post has been reviewed, corrected, and approved by M, our Santastic correspondent.