Vicarious Rocky

The Tree is Up, we saw Santa, and the kid still wants Military tanks and a Robot. Santa looked at me as if to say, "Uh, what do you think Mom, is that happening?" And I gave the old, "I got it covered" nod.

I think I understand now why kids are not always plain enthusiastic about seeing Santa. In addition to the obvious reason that he's a grown stranger in a suit, I think too that my kid was a bit star stuck. So imagine if you won a silent auction bid for lunch with one of your heros. You might approach the table with the same feeling a kid has approaching Santa. "What the hell am I going to say to this person? This is THE so and so."

Incidentally, was Santa always a photo racket? $17 was the cheapest photo I could buy and you get really pressured to buy them. I thought Santa was ideally a draw for the mall stores, not a revenue stream unto itself. Bah Hum Bug.

Well, I will say Santa didn't look like much of a draw when we were there Sunday afternoon. No line to see him and the mall was dead. Looked like an average Thursday night of traffic from the late 80s. Wait a minute, am I about to get nostalgic about the heyday of malls?!