Vigilanty Santa Photographer

I don't really think of myself as "cheap", but definitely thrifty. I have this way of sort of rating the importance of the things I can spend my money on, and there are just some things I won't pay for. For instance, the Chandler Mall has a train that drives around the ground floor of the mall. For me to take my kids on this train would cost us nearly $10... To ride a train....around the mall. I would much rather take that $10 and say, buy a DVD that we could all enjoy over and over. It just seems to make more economic sense to me. My kids have come to accept this about me and have stopped asking for certain things after I've made it clear that Mommy doesn't spend money on that.

With that being said, I have always loved to get a picture of my kids with Santa. It is just one of those things that marks the holidays for me. So when the kids balked at seeing Santa when we went to the Polar Express, I asked them if they wanted to go see Santa at the mall, and they told me they did. So one Monday night we loaded everyone up and went to go see Santa at the Chandler Mall.

For the last couple of years there has been a sign that asks you to please refrain from using personal cameras, in an effort to get you to purchase their "professional" photos. However, purchasing WAY overpriced pictures of Santa does not rate very high on my importance meter, and I just simply refuse to do so. I have always asked politely if I could take my own picture and have never been refused.... until this year. The not-so-nice photographer informed me in a not-so-nice way that taking pictures of my child with Santa is prohibited and if I wanted a picture I was going to have to purchase it. So, I checked out the prices and almost fell over. It's one thing to charge $5 for a photo in a paper frame. That I would have been all for. But the prices were astronomical! I'm talking $23 for 3 small photos, and if you wanted a digital copy of the photo (which is all anyone is really interested in these days) it would cost upwards of $40!!! I just looked at her and laughed. No way, Jose! I was so mad that this company is turning the fun of Christmas in to a disgusting racket. I felt I had to make my little statement right then and there. Out came my camera and a picture I took of Josh on Santa's lap, not even coming close to trying to be sneaky about it. The girl looked so annoyed I thought she might sick a mall cop on me and have me kicked out of there! It's not a good picture and was taken more on principal than to get any kind of decent picture. I guess our days of getting pictures with Santa at the mall are over. I knew the day would come, but that somehow doesn't make me feel any better about it. Bah humbug!