Thursday, December 22, 2011

Santa Pictures

Santa/T-Rex, Same Thing
So anyone who has kids knows how fun Santa pictures can be. When I say "fun" what I really mean is "the time when your kid looks at you like 'why the hell did you make me come sit on this strange mans lap while you guys do weird shit to try and make me smile.'" True story. Our experiences with Santa over the last three years have been amusing to say the least. Link never ceases to totally crack me up when good ol' Saint Nick is concerned. And now I give you his first Santa picture experience in 2009 for his very first Christmas.

We went with our friends Aaron and Nicky and their little girl and Link's BFF at the time Alex. We ended up at Nordstroms and our Santa was AWESOME. Link wasn't completely convinced but he graced us with a wannabe happy face to start:
Then he started to get curious. Who is this strange man who has deprived me of my mommy for a whole 60 seconds? He has gloves. He might not be trustworthy...
Wait a second... you are NOT my mommy or my daddy. Who are you?!
OMG. What the hell?! Who is this big man who has me? And commence the classic "kid crying on Santas lap picture." Perfect!

Onto experience #2. Again we went to Nordstroms with our same friends... though this time D was deployed so I had little help in making him smile as our friends now had two little girls to attend to. 2010 was a bit of a different experience. 2010 was the year Link decided Santa was the same thing as T-Rex and that he would tolerate being on his lap BUT determined if he didn't move or change his expression that Santa would not know he was there and would, therefore, not eat him whole. So the majority of the pictures were of Link with a blank expression on his face holding a ball that he refused to surrender.

Finally by some small miracle the photographer caught two shots of a tiny little smirk. He was one. It's the best we could do. Thanks Inky.

That brings me to this year 2011. With remnants of his decision last year that Santa was the equivalent of T-Rex he graced us with some great pics. He was so psyched right before we saw Santa saying "We gonna go see SaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanTA!" and jumping up and down like he was going to attack and bear hug him when we entered the place. Wrong. He had to be coaxed over to Santa and then he gave us this gem:

Then it was as if he had to be convinced that this man was indeed Santa so he did a little investigating of the beard. He determined it was real but that still didn't make him warm up to the suited man.

Then the big guy took things into his own hands. This was the picture D and I immediately agreed would be one of the pictures on our Christmas card. The look on Inky's face is such a classic Link look that it HAD to be on the card!

After Santa helping and me doing a "candy cane dance," D making silly noises that usually make Link laugh, and the two of us bribing him with candy, chocolate and toys (yes, we are those parents) we got this one:

Still even after the small smile we went back to something that was so Link I can barely stand how awesome it is. He leaned back as and gave Santa his evil look as if to say "bitch, I know you're not the real thing."And those have been our Santa picture experiences thus far. I now look forward to it because I may not get the sweet awesome smiling picture with Santa but he definitely let's his personality shine through and makes me laugh. So, SUCCESS!

1 comment:

Blythe said...

Loved the card!