Many years ago when Hunter what maybe 2 years old, I like many other moms took her to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap and get a picture taken. I never thought I would be one of those moms, but then I became a mom and decided it was the best idea since sliced bread.
As Hunter and I stood in the line, inside a hot mall with our winter coats on and getting hotter by the minute , I tried to keep her entertained by making up stories about the fake reindeer and penguins they had on the fake snow. Once in awhile we would watch as a mom brought her child kicking and screaming toward the poor man dressed in a Santa suit in the hopes of snapping a quick picture where the crying looked like a smile.
I’m sure you can guess what happened……yup, we waited a good hour, me making up stories about the fake animals on the fake snow leading up to the fake Santa and when it was finally our turn, I walked Hunter up to the Santa and she promptly said NO! There was reasoning, Santa talked to her but NO! was the final answer. I had watched the other parents force their kids to sit on Santa’s lap crying and had decided early in the line I was not going to do the same, so we said thank you and walked away.
As for me, my Santa memories go way back to a little cabin that used to be set up right next to the railroad crossing at Central Avenue and Sheridan Road in Highland Park, Illinois. Each year the park district would erect this little tiny cabin and Santa would be in there weekends and evenings with a heater in the room, all decorated like it was where Santa lived and selling hot cocoa as we waited in line in the frigid Chicago-land winters (trust me, Winter was way colder with much more snow when I was a kid….global warming is real). Families would wait in line with their kids to go in and sit on Santa’s lap, take a picture and the kids would tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas.
As you can see by the pictures included with this post, I was young when we last went to visit Santa. Years later I worked at the Highland Park Theater just down the road from where the Santa House was usually set up and I had forgotten about it for a time until one Christmas season when Sue, Gini, Nancy, Shelly and I were walking down the street after a movie and stopped right at the site where the house once stood and I noted it was gone. They had never been to the Santa House when they were little because they grew up one town over from me so of course I had to stop everything and tell them all about it.
Michael’s favorite movie at Christmas time is A Christmas Story and while I did not grow up in 1940’s Ohio, each time I watch it and sends me back to snow-filled streets, Christmas Eve at the Rouses’ house and skitchin’ behind cars on Windsor Road and of course, The Santa House.
