No love for the big guy in red!

Last night, Caroline and I met Tim up at Lenox Mall to see Santa Claus. All day, I tried prepping her for the big moment. We looked at Santa pics, saw a Santa at Kroger, and I kept going "ho ho ho". Was she ready??? Absolutely NOT! It's almost like she had a keen sense of what was about to happen. We got in line and closer to the front, I took her out of the stroller so that she could get a good luck at Santa. Caroline was not impressed. As a matter of fact, she wanted nothing to do with him. Santa's little elf asked her name and told me to drop her on Santa's lap and walk away so he could snap some pics. Okay, hindsight vision tells me that this was already a problem. Did I listen to my gut? NO! I dropped and ran! Caroline started SCREAMING! Needless to say, even Santa was ready to get her off of his lap while all the other moms and dads just laughed (probably reliving memories). As soon as I picked her up, she stopped crying. Another hindsight vision...Tim and I were dressed up, so why we didn't just take a family picture? $24 later, we are now the proud owners of a picture of Caroline screaming with Santa! Why did we buy the picture and not just use our camera? The posted sign read "Sitting with Santa is complimentary and you are welcome to take your own pictures. However, if you take your own pictures, then you NEED to buy one of ours!" I guess that's what we get for going to one of the most upscale malls in Atlanta! Oh by the way, we are still on the waiting list for the "real" Santa at Phipps Mall for NEXT YEAR! Yep, you read that right, NEXT YEAR!