Another Santa Parade?

But, with no photos today (this one is from yesterday). We headed out to the mall today. I know, I know you are asking, "what were you thinking?". Apparently I wasn't. Usually if you go to the mall first thing in the morning on a Sunday you miss all the crowds. But, not today.

The first shocking thing was that there was a huge line up to see Santa already and he wasn't even at the Village. Hubby and I did a few stores and headed up to one more on the third floor. There was a huge crowd of people at the entrance to the mall. Kids were everywhere, there were risers for them to sit and watch. We could barely get through. Finally, Hubby asked another Dad what was going on. He looked at us strangely and said, "Santa of course, there is a parade today".

We decided to wait and watch instead of trying to break through the crowds to get to the store. It was cute. There were clowns, elves (kids from a dance school) and mascots from sports teams. After waving to Santa we went on our way. Little did we know that Santa's Parade went around each of the three floors of the mall, singing and dancing.

By the time we stopped for lunch and headed out, Santa was just arriving at the Village. I could not believe it. There were parents that had been waiting for two hours with their kids all dressed up to get their photos with Santa. No wonder there are so many stories of kids crying and not wanting to have their photos taken. They are exhausted people! Just do what I do and get to the Mall first thing in the morning on a Tuesday. There is nobody there and you just walk up, chat with Santa and get your photo taken. Tada. We will be doing that another day.

On a good note we knocked off a couple of J's presents today, it was quick and painless and he was none the wiser.