Santa or bust....BUST

Well, just as expected we had another dramatic visit with Santa...when will the tides turn? When will this child realize that Santa is the one who brings all the great presents, who stars in all the great movies on TV this time of year? There is always next year.

But I was smart...yup. Olivia's First Christmas she was 5 months old, sat on his lap and smiled pretty for the camera, I was clearly a rookie and went for the Mall Santa Experience...never again. We paid an arm and a leg for the picture! Last year we saw Santa at my parents neighborhood "bring your grandchildren to meet Santa" party, it was a nightmare, she screamed as soon as he entered the clubhouse, but no crazy prices, so we were making progress, at least from the financial side of things. And now that brings us to this year. I saw an advertisement for Free Pictures with Santa and Crafts at Bass Pro Shops, a place I have wanted to visit, but had yet to make time for, so yesterday morning we set off with YaYa and GaGa (my parents) to meet Jolly Ol' Saint Nick.

We spent a lot of time coaching Olivia, preparing her for what was to come, she was excited, spent the better part of the morning talking about seeing Santa Claus, the line was already 30+ families deep when we got there, so Olivia and I ran around the store while Brad, my Dad and Avery waited in line. We made our way back to the line, which was oh so conveniently stationed near the "snack bar", which meant Olivia "needed" some popcorn to snack on while we waited.

She was great up until it came time to walk down the red carpet to meet the Big Guy...then the protests started and got louder and louder and louder, she went limp and it was downhill from there. Take a look...

Please excuse: the quality of the phone, I have no idea what Brad was doing, and secondly please excuse how crazy overweight I am. Focus on Olivia's face...can't you just hear the screams?

At least one of my darling daughters enjoyed her time with Santa...I have a feeling next year might be a double whammy with both girls in tears, so I am going to cherish this picture and think of it often.

So we collected the pictures from the nice elves and what to our surprise, FREE KIDS MEAL COUPONS galore. So of course off to the Restaurant we went.

Olivia's Mini Corn Dogs arrived within seconds of placing the order....our meals however...took their sweet time. 45 minutes later our meals arrived. My Crab Cake Sandwich and my Dad's Burger were cold, so that was a big disappointment, the good news is that the manager came over and took them off the bill, so at the end of the day, not only did we get a free picture with Santa, a free kids meal for Olivia, we also got two free adult meals - not too shabby, eh?