User post: To Santa Pic or Not To Santa Pic

I did it. Again. I swore I wouldn't. I promised myself for the second year of my three year-old daughter's life that if she didn't want to sit on Santa's lap, she was not going to sit on Santa's lap.

Here's this year's pic. Gawd. Tell me I'm not one of those Moms.

What do you see? A smiling little girl in her holiday finery, cozying up to Santa like a champ, happy and excited?

Yeah, that's not what happened.

Given the anxiety that the annual Santa's lap photo has caused in our home the past two years (perhaps more for me than my daughter), I began asking myself "what's with your deep need for this photo op, anyway?" My reflections centered on three stages of my life:

Stage 1 - My childhood Santa photo ops

My parents only took us to sit on Santa's lap a few times. I'll have to ask my Mom the reasons why (and applaud her, perhaps, for her survival skills?) The times we went, my sister and I were kids, not terrified toddlers. Our few Santa photos show us smiling genuine smiles. Bottom line, I have no personal childhood trauma about going to the mall to sit on Santa's lap. My Santa terrors were saved for my grandfather who showed up to our home in bad Santa costumes during my small tyke years, scaring the sugar cookies right out of me. By the time I went to the mall to take Santa pics, I pretty much had the lay of the Santa landscape and found it fun.

Stage 2 -- The "Always an Auntie" decades

While a lifelong lover of kids, I was single until 41 and childless until 48. This means I had a lot of life to vicariously experience Santa pic moments as the Auntie, tagging along with friends and family on their trips to the mall. Yes, I saw the long lines, the cranky parents and the crying kids, but I always watched the parents' faces when they saw their photos. Little Johnny could have been sobbing, yawning, or lunging from Santa's lap, but somehow they always beamed. Oh, how I wanted to have that same experience.

Stage 3 -- A Mom at 48!

My husband and I adopted Maya at 3 days old in August 2007. You better believe that December we had our 3-month old daughter in her adorable winter ensemble, propped in Santa's lap. It felt amazing. Wonderful. I loved every minute of being in the long line of cranky parents. That Santa photo went in my wallet and I smiled at it all year long. The next year, when she was a little over one, she wiggled and fussed a bit at the photo shoot and I actually had to half hold her sitting near Santa, but we were still pleased. Maybe I should have taken that wiggling as a sign of things to come.

Fast forward to age 2, then 3.

These past two Christmases have been...challenging. Were my daughter to express fear and anxiety about Santa year round, or even all of December, I would honor her feelings and drop the Santa photo routine. Yet things are not so clear cut. We are dealing with Miss Vacillation. In the days leading up to the Santa photo, she is animated, regaling us with stories of what she will wear, what she will say to Santa, even which favorite toys she will bring to share with him. I allow myself to dream.

This year, we drive to the mall, she's still on board. We enter the mall, she's practically at a sprint. But then, it happened. We get within 200 feet of the mall's "North Pole" and she freezes in her tracks. Eyes wide, lip trembling, the Santa terrors I hoped were an "age 2 thing" back in full force. My normally confident, curious, adventurous 3-year old has turned into a puddle of anxiety.

Last year I was proud of myself. I didn't push, threaten or bribe. We sat at a distance and just watched Santa hang out with other kids. We took in the lights. We talked about other things. Then bless that Santa, he caught her eye, waved at her from a far, and her little heart opened. She went to him, scared but intrigued. I wanted to kiss last year's Santa and bring him home with me.

This year, she froze in the same spot. I tried all of the same strategies. She wasn't having it, though she hovered in the area, stopping to write the Santa letter and checking out the decor. But this year, I didn't have the patience of a saint. I didn't have multiple days to come back to the mall. And I was salivating over the scene in front of me -- there was NO LINE. How could we leave without this picture when Santa was so tauntingly near?

Maya said "let's go to the toy store and the chocolate cookie store instead."

My not so proud moments began. I cajoled. I practiced subterfuge and the fine art of distraction. I even casually held Maya while calling out to Santa, posing some inane question to get him looking our way. It kind of worked. Once Mommy was chatting up Santa, she grew attentive. Time to seize the moment.

Did I see her tears start again as we made our final approach? I did. Did I continue to move towards Santa as if pulled by a laser beam? Guilty. But with my last bit of honorable Mom presence, I held her in my arms while kneeling in front of him, trying to start an ice-breaker talk between them at close-range. It didn't help that this was one crooked-eyed Santa, stingy with the smiles. Even I wanted to take a step back!

God bless my little girl, she took a deep breath and climbed up on his lap.

The bored camera dude did his thing while I idiotically called her name, doing that strange wiggle-dance parents do in Santa photo booths. I watched my daughter make an amazing series of expressions in the course of ten seconds: a nervous, teary smile, then a stoic, I-am-brave smile, then a truly goofy, "isn't this crazy, Santa is scary but I'm laughing!" smile, apparently cracking herself up or trying, anyway. I wish I could have heard the narrative inside her head.

Two minutes later, she was happy as a lark and we were off in pursuit of toys and chocolate chip cookies.

So, in the end, I got the photo. My daughter's forced smile and the last vestige of her tears are clear to me in this image and for that, I feel some guilt. And yet, I love this photo because I also see in my little girl's expression her spirit and desire to be brave and try.

The photo is on our fridge now. As we looked at it today I asked her, "what do you think of this photo?" She said "I think it's adorable. Hi Santa!"

My angst is clearly lasting way longer than hers.