Matty, Meet Santa

I debated for a long time about whether or not to take MJ to see Santa this year.  I mean, come on, he's 4 months old.  He's not going to remember it and, chances are, the whole experience would scare the heck of out of him.  Another strike against it was when I googled places to see Santa in Las Vegas and found out that all of the places around here CHARGE for pictures with Santa.  SERIOUSLY?!  When did this happen?  I swear my parents never had to pay for a picture of me with the Big Guy in Red.  Otherwise, I would have never gotten one taken.  Well, to be fair, they don't charge you to actually take the picture; they just charge you to get a copy of the picture.  And you can't just buy A picture.  You have to buy a PACKAGE.  Like, a $30 package.  Not kidding.  Maybe I'm just being cheap, but there was no way in the world I was paying $30 for a picture with a---stop reading if you're under the age of 10--fake Santa.

By chance, however, I stumbled across a thing that said Bass Pro Shops offer a free pic with Santa, as well as a whole workshop with crafts and activities for kids.  Matty is a little too young for the crafts, but they had me at the word "free."  Unfortunately, the only Bass Pro Shop in Las Vegas is all the way on the other side of town.  But, yesterday morning, we found ourselves with nothing better to do so we headed out.

I dressed Matty in his cute "My First Christmas" onesie and cute little baby jeans, topping the outfit off with a bib to try and keep the spit-up off him at least until we got the picture taken.  It took us about a half hour to get down there but, although I'd heard the place can get pretty crazy, there was no one there at noon on Tuesday so we were able to walk right up to Santa.  And he was a good Santa, one of the ones with a real beard.  I yanked off Matty's bib right before handing him off to Santa and BLUH--he, of course, spit up all over himself.  Perfect.  I cleaned up as best I could and gave him to Santa, who was now eyeing me AND Matty VERY carefully.

Matty was all smiles, apparently not caring that he was now sitting in a strange man's lap.  Santa even remarked what a great smile he had.  But then, as soon as the camera came out, the smile disappeared and Matty gave one of his famous blank stares:  eyes wide and breathing through his mouth.  I kept calling his name and smiling big, trying to catch his eye and make him smile.  He'd see me and smile and then, as soon as the camera came out--BOOM--blank stare again.  This went on for almost 10 minutes before I finally gave up.  The photographer showed me the picture and there was my son, the mouth breather.  "It's fine," I said, grabbing my free 4 x 6 print and my son and hurrying from Santa's Wonderland.

And as soon as we were out of sight of Santa and his reindeer, Matty grinned.  Stinker.