Every parent has some sort of fantastic story about their children visiting Santa at the mall. Some kids cry at the mere sight of the jolly old man, and others tug on the somewhat suspicious beard adhered to Santa’s chubby chin. I have seen kids sit on Santa’s lap and pull out a detailed list of items they wish to have delivered by Christmas morning, and a few kiddos even ask Santa if they could borrow a reindeer for show-and-tell for school next Friday. My child decided to take advantage of an entirely different aspect of the whole Santa experience.
My son, only about 15 months old, visited Santa for the second time this last week. He was excited about the event and impatiently awaited his turn to sit on Santa’s lap. He watched carefully as family after family posed with Santa Claus. Each time he saw a new family enter into Santa’s cabin-like set up, he looked more suspicious of the situation. He wasn’t anxious, but he was indeed concerned about the validity of the traditional mall experience.
After watching about 20 other kids take their turn with the man in red, we finally step up to our turn. I place Erik carefully on the gentleman’s lap and stand back in preparation for picture taking. Erik, completely content to be alone with Santa, turns to face Santa Claus directly. I expected him to tug on the beard or maybe point at his nose (since he just learned what it is called), but no. Before I realized exactly what the little guy was up to, Santa was howling in pain. My son, the first ever according to Santa’s helpers, thought that the man in red’s eyebrows were far more unbelievable than the beard or the belly full of jelly. That’s right, folks. My son grabbed Santa’s eyebrows and pulled with all of his might. Needless to say, the brows were as authentic as could be.
Blushing and half expecting Santa to shun my curious kiddo, I started toward my son hoping to get him out of there before Santa made a mental note of my face just in case we decided to come back next year. Fortunately, Santa was a good sport and ho-ho-hoed at my son’s reaction to the entire experience. He allowed the photographer to capture a few cute (less painful) moments with my son and the man in red and even told me he thought I had one of the cutest kids he’d seen that day. Regardless of whether he tells each parent that they have cute kids or not, I felt much better about the situation as it had happened only minutes before.
While waiting in yet another line to pick up the pictures of Erik and Santa, Erik holds out his hand to show me something he’d picked up along the way. Thinking maybe he’d pulled something out of my purse or pulled a clippy out of my hair, I look down to find that he had a handful of relatively short white hairs. I considered returning them to their owner, but instead grabbed my pictures, went home, and started researching other Santas in the area. Next year, we’ll definitely be visiting a Santa Claus with well groomed brows and whom, hopefully, hasn’t heard of my son and his attack on one Santa’s facial hair.