$21 well spent?

We decided to brave the cold (-30's) yesterday and take the kids for their annual trip to Santa. Now that I look back on it all I think we were doomed from the start! The weather may have been trying to tell us just to stay home.
Anyway, we dressed up the kids and decided to head to a mall near downtown that we don't usually go to because we heard they have a great Santa. We got to the mall and after asking several employees where Santa was located we finally found him. He was sitting in front of a gorgeous Christmas tree but the rest of the Santa area was tiny. We were one family away from the front of the line when we were told that Santa was taking his break for an hour. What?! (That should have been our next hint to just head home.)
We decided to cruise the mall since we rarely get the chance. AL was in heaven in the Disney store and some how managed to come away from it with a plush Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

An hour is actually a long time to kill with little ones so we decided to have some fries (minus ketchup so the kids would stay clean). Over this hour poor little JA started to get sick (runny nose and eyes) and was his happy disposition was rapidly falling apart. We finally got back in line to see Santa and when we spotted him walking towards us it was a different Santa...........this Santa was wearing some huge 70's glasses and looked anything but jolly. Poor little JA started crying before he even sat on Santa's knee and AL was doing good until he started to talk to her at which point she ran back to her Daddy who was still paying (he says he wished he had just pushed cancel on his debit transaction at this point). T and I both ended up in the picture with one extremely hysterical JA and a scared little AL. I am even "shhhhhing" James in the picture.
For only $21 we were the happy owners of this beauty of a picture and the happy parents of 2 traumatized children!

Both kids were given candy canes which seemed to calm them down until they were taken away due to the red sticky mess running down their faces.


We topped the weekend off by making one sad looking gingerbread house that induced a bit of stress as the walls started to collapse.

But the kids did enjoy the candy!