Cam met Santa yesterday. We went to the mall to give Daddy some quiet, since he's working from home. I was shocked to find there was no line for Santa. I took it as a good omen when the three year-old in front of us rushed up to Santa and hopped into his lap as her grandmother stood there dumbfounded. "She's usually scared of Santa, this is odd." When I walked up with Cam, she reached for him, so I thought *maybe* we'd get a good shot.
Something to know about Cam: she will not smile willingly for any camera. If it weren't for digital photography, we'd be stuck with 1000's of pictures of our darling daughter looking slack-jawed and confused. The sweet girl doing the photos chirped out to Cam, imploring her to smile. She squeaked a frog, waved her hands, all to no avail. She snapped about a dozen pics. Every single one resembled the pic above. The only variation is the placement of the hands.
Cam tugged Santa's beard (it's real!), perhaps imparted a few of her secrets, and stared at him and us, as if we had all lost our damn minds. When I came home and showed Rob the pictures he laughed hard and long. A shared "joke". We have deleted 1000's of pictures of Campbell over the last 10 months. When we get a pic of her smiling you can bet there were about 20 just like it, but without the smile. "The Look" is quintessential Cam: observant and thinking. We can tell when something has caught her attention and she is intrigued, because The Look immediately comes across her face. We see it probably 20 times a day.
This time, perhaps she was puzzling out that the her mother caved to societal pressure by starting The Big Lie. You see, I am on the fence about Santa and his height challenged minions. On the one hand, it's a time-honored tradition of lying to our children about a fat guy distributing toys with the help of fantastical flying deer. On the other is truth and honesty that Mama & Daddy go further into debt to buy toys that seem so awesome all wrapped up and pretty on Christmas morn, but turn out to be cheap crap and easily broken. My quandary is borne not of a heart of dark black coal, but of someone who does not believe in the super-natural to begin with. That, and my brother, Andrew ruined Santa for me at the tender age of five. By locking me where my parents stored all of "Santa's booty, in a crawl space under the stairs. It was the same year I asked Santa for a drum, so while I was extremely pleased to see that drum I was horrified to realize that it had all been a lie. The forced visits with the scary, huge, hairy beast of a man were awful. I remember the Santa of my youth took up temporary residence in a trailer outside of our local Sears. You entered at one end of the trailer, and had to walk the long length of the trailer before you got to Santa. A gauntlet of hell for me. So upon realizing Santa was straight bullshit? A cynic was born. A cynic who hates liars and lying.
And that drum? Andrew broke it about an hour after I finally got to play with it on Christmas morning. Something I lord over him to this day. I love my big brother, but still think Santa is a crock of shit. Merry Christmas everyone!
LOL....I personally was never told that Santa is "real" in that sense, but mom and dad bought the gifts, Santa was a reminder to be kindness to people....so you could say *I* believe in Santa, and that's what I'll teach, but it's a different philosophy. I love the picture though...it's classic. I'm doing ours at the mall later this month....we'll see how that goes.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good way of looking it, Dannie, thanks for the post! :)
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the mall pics. I's really hit or miss with kids...lol. I said I would be happy with a big smiling face, or the all-out crying face. Both are awesome in my book.