Saturday, December 10, 2011

Santas of Kimmens Past (and Present) - 2011

2008 (6 months) - He gived me candy! BFFs!

2009 (18 months) - Mommeeee....

2010 (2-1/2) - Help. Me...

2011 (3-1/2) - There! I smiled! Can we go get a Cinnabon now?
And this year we got our first Santa picture where she doesn't look like she's being abducted! (Other than her 6-month-old picture, but she was too young to know better then.) And we went with a different tack this year. Instead of me stalking circling the Santa area for hours on a slow weekday morning and bribing her with toys and treats, my husband came along and said if she didn't get up there and smile he'd have to brush her hair, since her stalling was messing it up. ("No! Not the brushing! Anything but the brushing!")

I read a post about getting kids to smile for photos (and what NOT to do.) So I tried to get her to smile without telling her to smile or asking her to say "cheeeeeeese!" She just saw the new Muppet movie, and her favorite part was when Scooter had stage-fright and they told him to picture the audience naked. Well. I was originally going to tell her to picture Santa naked, but that just seemed all kinds of wrong to me.
So instead I said, "Z - just picture the audience NAKED!" And Santa just lost it. The photographer kept having to remind him to get his hand off his face, he was laughing so hard!
Well, at least it beats the photo taken before he started laughing!
"Can I go home now please, Mister?"
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3 comments:

  1. UnknownDecember 10, 2011 at 5:42 PM

    Aww I love all of the Santa pics! I miss standing in line to see Santa, but sadly my 11 year old won't have any of it this year lol.

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  2. karenDecember 10, 2011 at 10:58 PM

    Love love LOVE this! Johnny has gotten one picture with Santa at the mall -- one on a Santa train we took him on. It's a very hit or miss thing with us, it seems.
    As for the picture smiles, when I was little and my mom took me to get my picture taken one time instead of "cheese" the photographer told me to say "fuzzy pickle" which got me giggling SO much it's still one of my favorite pictures ever :)

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  3. Ludicrous MamaDecember 11, 2011 at 1:27 AM

    My only rule for Santa pics has been No Tears. And I don't mean it's a rule I make her follow. It's not worth it to me to get the picture if she's gonna cry. Why REINFORCE her negative associations by letting her get upset? I'll cheerfully accept a no-smile picture, and I tell the photographers that. My goal is no tears.
    Now that she's older, I go and show her all the previous Santa pics, to show her that it's a tradition that is important to me, and I ask that she sit with Santa for a picture FOR ME. I tell her that I understand that she doesn't want to, and that it makes her uncomfortable, but that I will be there with her, and it's ultimately up to her.

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