What's up, Santa?

Well, we did it. We took Amelia to see Santa today. Check her out. The whole experience was straight out of a Christmas movie...A Christmas Story or Elf perhaps. The hilarity. Let me start by saying that clearly this is not the real Santa. If it was, he would not have had his cell phone, car keys, and jar of Carmex sitting on a faux present next to his "throne," (Elf fans, you know just what kind of throne I am referring to). He even had an air purifier blasting next to him, that's a new one. And certainly the real Santa would not have asked me how old she was, twice no less, or her name for that matter. The real Santa knows stuff like that.
So, we waited in line and watched kid after kid, dressed in their Christmas dresses and Christmas sweaters enter beyond the golden velvet rope to sit on Santa's lap. Some willingly, some a little apprehensive and of course, there were those who clung to their Dads, screaming to be rescued as he, all the while perspiring from the brow, gently tried to pry desperate little hands off of himself and into the arms of a big bearded stranger. :)
But our Amelia, obviously by the look on her face, was just humoring her parents on this one. She never even looked up at Santa. For all she knew, she was sitting in a big, cozy, fuzzy, red chair in the middle of a mall, staring back and forth from Dad to Mom to a camera lady who were all making fools of themselves jumping up and down, shaking jingle bells, yelling her name trying to make her smile. She remained quite serious throughout the whole thing, a little perplexed even, but never cried. The silliness of it all made me laugh and filled me up with that fuzzy nostalgic feeling you get when you watch your kid experience something for the first time. I also couldn't help but jump ahead a few years in my mind as I wondered which of the above mentioned kids she would be when she was old enough to actually be aware of what was happening...excited and confident, shy but intrigued or just plain terrified...we got our shot, paid our fee and went on our merry way with yet another surreal parenting moment under our belts.