We took Carter for a trip to see Santa at the mall today. I know it’s a joke, I know it’s a huge cash grab, and I know that it’s just icky sticking your child in some strangers lap just for a 30 second picture. Thirty bucks later you have an overexposed shitty shot of your child trying to escape the grasp of this weirdo dressed in a fake ass beard and dirty smelly red suit.

Call me a horrible monster, an unfit mother, I don’t care, however, I find the look of terror in a child’s eyes quite funny as they see Santa for the first time. Carter was shocked. Like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding transport truck. He got out of his stroller fine and as I started to lead him up to Santa he stopped dead in his tracks. A stare down. He would not for one second break eye contact with this man. He wasn’t memorized per say, just curious/worried/afraid/concerned/scared maybe?
I let him take his time. I watched him stand there as I tried to coax him in Santa’s direction all the while he was not letting himself be distracted by the slightest noise or movement. He was fixated on this red suit and hideously fake beard.
Eventually I had to grab him and put him on the old man’s lap. He sat okay for a couple seconds and then realized what had happened and where he was. When he saw that I was not the one holding him anymore everything came undone and he just fought like hell. I thought he was going to lose it, but he was quite calm as he tried his very hardest to break the grasp of this creepy man. We got two so-so pictures until he went stone faced. It’s like Medusa got him in her sights and turned him to stone on the spot.
I couldn’t stop giggling. I did try to contain myself because of the other parents around. I didn’t want them to catch on think that I really was doing this for my own sadistic pleasure. The child after Carter was priceless. He was howling and carrying on; grasping at his mom as though she was leaving him there with this fake Santa forever. I had to leave before I was tied to a stake and burned alive. Horrible. I am just horrible.

The pictures are utter crap, yet a priceless symbol of years-to-come of fearing mall Santas. I. can’t. wait.