The Santa Story

Pop quiz! How long does it take a family of five to get fed, dressed and out of the house on Saturday morning? Answer in the comments to win my undying gratitude because clearly I have no clue.

The plan was to be at the Eaton Centre for Story Time with Santa at noon and to then continue to the east end for two family gatherings. The kids would get to do the Santa thing and I would get some material for a story about the new mall Santa experience I was hoping to pitch for publication. Win, win. (And, secretly, I was hoping to have time for a little shopping too.) Extra winning.

We instead managed to pile into the car at twenty to twelve with no snacks, sippy cups, pjs to change into or even a spare diaper to speak of.  I found street parking a couple blocks away from the mall and had just managed to unload all the children when Ed started yelling, “Everybody back in the car! GET IN THE CAR!!!” What the? “I swear to god,” I thought, “If this isn’t a parking spot then I can’t even tell anymore.”

The parking spot was totally legit, it turns out. Ed was just worried about the half dozen squad cars that had come to a squealing stop right beside our car and the armed police officers positioned around the jewelry store directly across the street from us. The kids were back in the car while Ed and I crouched down behind it like something out of Law and Order.

“So I can park here, right?” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “I just didn’t want the kids running wild with this take down in progress.”

He had a point. But we loaded up the double stroller, locked the car and made a break for it anyway. We were there to see Santa, dammit, and I wasn’t about to let a little armed robbery get in my way. We tore along Queen Street and into the mall, various children hanging off the stroller or dragging along behind it.

“So where exactly is this thing?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you know where it is?”

Neither of us knew where it was, but we both thought that we probably knew where it might be. That’s just as good, right? It’s really not. After winding our way through crazy Black Friday-weekend crowds, nary a fat bearded man in sight, we wound up at Guest Services. From there we were directed to leave the mall altogether, enter into an adjoining building and then take an elevator to the 27th floor. This is not your childhood mall Santa experience, friends.

Half an hour late, we missed all of story time. We were, however, just in time for the entire forty-five minute wait to sit with Santa and snap a picture or two. Was it too late, I wondered, to just hunker down in the car amidst potential gunfire? Because Snakes on a Plane has nothing on the new psychological thriller I’m working on: Fifty Kids in an Office Tower.

Ah, it wasn’t that bad. There was a room with juice and cookies and then there was the main Santa in space-themed room. What’s that? Oh, my bad. It was supposed to be the north pole, not space. But, come on, you hang up silver pleather drapes all over the place and I’m not supposed to think I’m in space?

There were also giant walrus and polar bear-shaped, vinyl bean bag sort of things for lounging on. Of course, my kids immediately kicked off their shoes and started jumping on them like they were in a really icy, space-themed bouncy castle or something. They were the only ones bouncing out of control and I didn’t bother trying to stop them either.

But it was all worth it in the end for these faces.

Santa lectured them about getting along and made them promise not to argue. He didn’t ask them what they want for Christmas. Each kid received a nicely gift-wrapped book. It was the same book.

Note that we basically had a good time and everyone else in attendance seemed to be enjoying themselves. The people who were staffing the event were friendly and helpful. All snark and sarcasm in this post is a reflection of my own cynical nature and not a comment on this perfectly nice holiday activity.