Our swimming lessons finished up for the year last week and so this was the first free Saturday that we've had in a while. Our local Harvey Norman store does free Santa photos every Saturday in the lead up to Christmas and for the last few years they've had an wonderful, friendly, authentic-looking Santa so we always go there for the kids' photos.
We decided to stop by and get a photo done before we did our grocery shopping this morning. We were in the car, still about 10 minutes away, when Shmoo let out an exclamation of delight - he'd spotted a helicopter flying over. We got to the intersection outside the shopping complex and I could tell it was really busy for some reason. Santa photos are popular but it was never usually this packed... cars going in and out and people everywhere! We turned into the carpark and noticed a local radio station set up and signs announcing Santa's arrival by helicopter. Uh oh. We hadn't been expecting that. We'd missed Santa's big arrival by about 5 minutes but there were heaps of families sticking around for the sausage sizzle, face painting, balloons and Santa photos.
Surprisingly we managed to snag a park pretty quickly so we walked up to at least check out how busy it was. Shmoo walked up the steps behind the big speakers, looking a bit stunned, his hands over his ears. The line for Santa photos went right down to the back of the store. We stood in line for a couple of minutes, discussing whether we should just come back next week, however I'd already promised Shmoo the day before that he could look at vacuums and get some new catalogues and he'd been more excited about that than the prospect of seeing Santa (after all, there's no way that even Santa can magically squeeze a Dyson into a Christmas stocking!). The OH and Beanie waited in line while I took Shmoo and Loo to the vacuums.
By the time we'd thoroughly checked out the vacuum display, The OH and Beanie had moved a fair way up the line so we decided to stick it out. I got my mobile out and the boys took turns at playing games on it. Thank goodness for smartphones (the HTC One XL is all kinds of awesome by the way. Have had it for a couple of months now... a huge upgrade from my old <$100 Telstra smartphone. Love the android os).
And then it was our turn for a photo with Santa. I'd convinced myself that this year The OH and I wouldn't need to be in the photo, that the kids were old enough to not get freaked out my the big guy in red. Unfortunately Beanie had other ideas and while he was happy to say a shy hello and high five Santa, there was no way he was going to have a bar of sitting next to Santa for a photo, even with his big brothers there. Another family photo!
So that was our long, busy morning but the kids were happy that they got to see both Santa and vacuum cleaners. And we overheard that Santa likes a snack of milk and Tim Tams... just in case you were wondering what kind of nibblies to leave out for him this year ;)
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