Santa: Holiday version of the Scary Clown

As a child I loved visiting Santa. I loved every minute of the anticipation, the excitement, the glory and hope it afforded… until I was actually faced with sitting on some fat, old guy’s lap. Then my intelligence got the better of me—and my voice. And yet somehow, as a parent, I continue to expect the reality of that trip to be completely different for my kids. So why am I surprised when it is always, always the same?

The Chicago Tribune has a great photo gallery that, as a parent, I can fully relate to: Pictures with Santa.

Who here amongst us hasn't stood in that flipping two-mile line at the mall, our children dressed to the nines, doing their squirrelly and happy dance, overly excited to ask the jolly, corpulent man for everything under the sun? And as time passes, and as they grow tired/hungry/poopy diapered/even-more tired, their sweet, tiny faces start to fade, losing the glow of anticipation and revealing through the cracks the face of the sour demon child within.

By the time the one-hour mark hits, your kids are chanting their favorite mantra: "Is it over? Can we go home now?" Oh, the joy is so thick you can almost taste it!

But alas! Finally the gods have smiled upon you, as the staple-faced teenager dressed as an elf on crack has deemed that it is now your turn to VISIT SANTA! It's TIME! He's WAITING! And so are the other 600 kids behind you and your fray, crying, pawing, chasing-each-other-in-line, using the backs of receipts as coloring pages for SOMETHING TO DO-- all while they await their blessed turn.

So hurry up, already.

Except… except something is wrong.

Something is terribly wrong.

Apparently, over the course of the ten-bajillion-hour wait in line, your sweet ones have apparently developed one of two types of inertia known as "Lead Foot" (actively aggressive) and/or, "Spaghetti Child" (passively aggressive).  Either affliction is most often accompanied by a terrified, wide-eyed glare. "Lead Foot" is best known for the tell-tale hanging-on-for-dear-life clutch to the parent's legs, rendering the child's mobility (and thus the parent's) impossible. "Spaghetti Child" is marked by the throwing-back-of-the-head-while-wailing motion and the complete, sudden loss of bone structure. While the symptoms of both forms of inertia are markedly different-- one set being highly rigid, while the other quite loose and floppy-- the presence of both sets are guaranteed when two children are present.

If a third child is present, that child will display "Flight," notably of the “Fight or Flight” characteristics of human nature.

One grasping your legs, wailing, the other floppy mass on the floor, also wailing, and possibly a third amped and running around, climbing and jumping off the rocks and fences of the staged fake-snow scene, you find yourself at a slight disadvantage. Luckily, nature has given you hormones and the internal strength of Zeus, and you manage to herd the wild monkeys into a ball and drop them unceremoniously into the lap of Evil Santa.

For he must be evil, as the children now cannot stop crying.

Aaannd so the photos go. Check them out.