A couple of weeks ago a friend told me about her family’s experience setting up a visit from Santa for her grandchildren this year. Two of her grandkids are four-year-old boys. Of course, they need to see Santa, pandemic or no pandemic. So parents and grandparents are working on a way for the grandsons to see Santa out of doors sometime this month.
Listening to her recount their efforts reminded me of Santa visits in my family. I’ve described my two childhood experiences with Santa—once in our home when I was a preschooler, and then a year or two later at Lloyd’s Center in Portland, Oregon. My dad took pictures of my brother and me when Santa visited our house. My parents bought a professional photograph of my brother and me with Santa at Lloyd’s Center.
And I took my kids to see Santa. When my son was almost two, I took him to Breakfast with Santa at the downtown Macy’s in Kansas City. A few years later, I took both kids to see Santa at the mall. And once we went to the Kansas City Museum to see the Fairy Princess, a holiday tradition in Kansas City (though I didn’t much see the value of visiting a princess rather than the Man in Red).
But unlike my parents, I failed to preserve my children’s formal visits to Santa or the Fairy Princess on camera. I never dressed my kids up for their encounters with Santa, and I never bought pictures. We have a few snapshots from when Santa came to see my children and their cousins at their grandparents’ house, but that’s it.
By contrast, my brother and sister made their children pose with Santa every year and have the pictures to prove it. I once asked my sister how she got her daughters to continue to visit Santa even when they were in high school. She said she bribed them.
This year will be different for many families because of the pandemic. Malls and other Santa sites are rearranging their decades-old practices to limit children’s contact with Santa. No sitting on laps. No whispering in the ear. I envision shouting at Santa through plexi-glass screens. Or Zoom calls with Santa. Neither seems as forceful in emphasizing the naughty-or-nice conversation that kids are supposed to have with Santa.
But then, my kids were traumatized by their early discussions with Santa. My son overcame his fear easily enough, and followed his older cousins onto Santa’s lap. But my daughter would have nothing to do with Santa and ran screaming from the room. She finally approached him in the arms of her aunt, much like she first watched fireworks through her grandfather’s glasses. Only later was she brave enough to join her brother and cousins.
So for more cautious children, perhaps Zoom is a safer way to encounter Santa. Not only because of COVID-19, but also because he’s a large, loud, scary man. We’re all used to Zoom now, even toddlers. Santa might be more manageable as a small square on a screen. And a screenshot will preserve the moment for posterity.
What do you remember of your first meetings with Santa?
