Bad Santa!

How best to traumatize small children? Force them to have their picture taken with Santa Clause, of course! My friend Marla Frankenberg sent me a funny email that contained these pictures and many others and it made me wonder why we force our children to sit on the lap of a bizarrely-dressed stranger when they obviously want no part of it.

There are exceptions, of course. My oldest son was never afraid of Santa. He's 17 years old now and I'm sure he'll love me for this but, here's a photo of Daniel when he was 8 months old sitting on Santa's lap for the first time. We literally had to pry him away from the jolly old elf. He adored him! I remember this day like it was yesterday. Hope you're all making wonderful memories this year and having a fantastic holiday!