Going to See Santa

*(Since I'm so behind on the blog, I'm backdating this post from January.)

I love a lot of Christmas traditions, but have always been kind of lukewarm about "visiting Santa" at the mall or similar venue. I don't remember it being a must-do in my own childhood, and I hadn't made the pilgrimage since becoming a parent, either.

But this year I have a three-year-old.

This was definitely the first year that Cora was aware of Christmas and all of the excitement and anticipation that goes with it. The first Christmas of her childhood where it was all magic for her. She talked about it all through December, and repeatedly mentioned wanting to go to see Santa, though you could tell she didn't know exactly what that meant--a visit to the North Pole, perhaps.

I was honor-bound to tell her that in fact there was a way for us to visit Santa. December being a busy month, I didn't get around to actually getting the three of us to the mall until December 23, however. I made a whole series of rookie mistakes here. The largest was assuming that since it was the middle of the day on a Wednesday, the line wouldn't be unreasonably long.

Of course it was long!


And since there's only one Santa, and each kid needs the chance to talk to him, it moved incredibly slowly. After we had been in line for fifteen minutes and had hardly moved, I thought there was no way we could make it through this line. I couldn't exactly tell Cora that I had changed my mind about seeing Santa, though. I figured we would stay in line until she couldn't stand it anymore, and when she asked to leave, we would, but it had to be her idea. Eventually, though, she would want to go home more than she would want to see Santa.

Also, I could see that none of the other adults in line around us were crazy enough to come with one adult and two small children--everyone else had at least two adults in their group, so one could hold their spot in line and one could walk the kids around the mall. I was in way over my head, here.

On top of everything else, December was quite a month of disequilibrium for Cora--lots of discipline problems, obstinacy, testing limits, all the usual culprits of the "trying threes." I had grave doubts she could hold it together to behave under the strain of standing in this line for hours.

After we had been in line for about twenty minutes, though, we came to a curve in the line where you could glimpse between two pillars and over a hedge and see Santa way over there in his cozy armchair. I lifted Cora up and pointed him out, and oh did she light up! I put her down and she jumped for joy, she was going to burst with excitement. She ran over and gripped the bars of Hazel's stroller and hissed through clenched teeth, "Hayzo! Hayzo! It's Santa!!" and exuberantly kissed Hazel on the top of her head. Santa is the ultimate celebrity sighting for a little kid.

Much to my amazement, Cora was really good through the line. And Hazel did her best. A good portion of the time I held Hazel on my hip and Cora sat in the stroller to rest. I had at least brought snacks, so Hazel was entertained one Cheerio at a time. When we got to about the halfway point, I realized we had a real shot at actually making it all the way through the line.

Another rookie mistake, though, was not making much of a potty plan for Cora, since I didn't think we'd be in line for so long. I had been worried about it from the first few minutes after we got in line, but figured we'd play it by ear. Sure enough, an hour and a half in, and five-sevenths of the way through the line, I see the tell-tale bouncing from foot to foot. I kneeled down and whispered, "Cora, do you have to go potty?" She looked me right in the eye and in the most serious three-year-old voice ever, replied, "But we have to see Santa."

I'm not one to ask for favors from strangers, but I had to turn to the mom behind us and say, "We need to go find a potty . . . " and right away she said, "I understand!" "So it's okay if we resume our place in line . . .?" "Sure! Sure!" Of  course most people would say yes, but she was really nice about it. Yay, people are good! We dashed off to the bathrooms and when we came back the line had hardly moved.

During the final stretch Cora found renewed energy (and probably relief from having visited the bathroom) and chatted up everyone around us in her usual gregarious way. The Christmas decorations, the nose ring of the mom next to us, the awesomeness of Santa, everything was a topic of conversation and she had charmed everyone by the time we got up to the final velvet rope. She was so joyful and excited to see Santa as we got to the front of the line that the mom in front of us said, "That alone is worth the two-hour wait, don't you think?"

The big moment arrived. Hazel didn't even cry. Cora's expression here is "Let's hurry up with this picture stuff--Santa and I have important things to discuss!"

I picked Hazel back up as soon as the picture was over, and Cora and Santa chatted while I picked out the picture I wanted and so forth.

Evidently it was all that Cora hoped for, because as soon as we left the room, Cora said she wanted to go see Santa again. I explained that we could see him again next year, but he had to get back to the toy-making.

All in all, this was one of those outings that was no big deal in theory--we just went to see Santa. But in reality, it was a big victory for Team Turner, and I'm amazed and pleased that we made it through a two-hour wait in line with just the three of us.