Christmas pictures gone wrong OR Kids vs Santa from the Mall

You know the mission all parents of young children embark on every single year before Christmas? Yep, grabbing their kids, dressing them up all cute and Christmasy, taking them to the nearest mall and queuing for probably longer than their kids can tolerate to pop them onto the weir stranger’s dressed like a Santa lap and hope for the best.

The kid’s reaction is unpredictable, especially taking into consideration the major stress they have to go through to wait until the moment their mom or dad passes them to someone, who’s supposed to be that miracle person coming to the house while they’re asleep (if that’s not creepy enough), and how tired they may get once they get to their turn. Some kids, especially babies, who’re not particularly keen on being held by someone they don’t recognize, freak out once they end up in the hands or on the lap of a big scary mall Santa.

The pictures usually don’t turn out that great, as the happy face children are expected to have when they see the hero of their Christmas – Santa Clause – more often than not comes out to be an expression of a horrified, screaming child not understanding what’s going on and begging for an escape. And, there’s nothing a mall photographer may do, as he’s able to do only a couple of shots per family and can’t make other people wait while one parent disparately tries to calm down his terrified kid and make him smile for a picture to send to the relatives. Simply traumatizing.

But the annual Christmas picture has to be taken, right? Even if none of the shots the photographer manages to take comes out semi-acceptable and the kid doesn’t miraculously stop crying in Santa’s hands, the tradition demands execution. These are the perfect examples of mall Santa picture taking that went completely wrong.

How many of these do your parents have with you and your siblings? Did you cry when you met Santa? How did this year’s pictures turn out? Let’s take a look and have a moment of fun in this pre-Christmas rush.