Dear Diary
I walked past the Nordstrom shop window yesterday and there was Santa taking photos with families and kids.
I stopped to watch.
A family with little kids came up. Santa, whose mike is broadcast outside the store so you can hear what he is saying, said hello and made reassuring noises but, of course, the girl baby started to scream.
Her older brother, originally fascinated and quite comfortable with Santa, became suspicious when his sister started to wail and took a step away, putting his right hand in his mouth and looking a bit freaked out by it all. I didn't see what happened, because I went to buy coffee, but I was thinking that Santa must have the patience of a saint.
When I walked past again, Santa was chatting to two pre-teens, who were clearly forced to be there by their parents and were totally DYING, Dude. Like, Oh. My. God!
They looked like the only thing that could be worse would be water boarding, and they were both standing as far away from Santa as they could, looking at the cameraman, willing him to get this damn thing over with.
It reminded me about a story a colleague once told me about a friend of hers who made her kids go every year until the youngest was 25 years old, at which point the children ganged up against their mother and flat out refused to co-operate.
On the other hand, it must be nice to have that yearly chronicle of how the kids grew up.
Maybe we should go see Santa Paws with the puppies...
Then again, I don't want to be the bitch whose dogs killed Santa...