send in the clowns

You'll have to forgive me if this offends you, but something's bugging me. (Wait a second, no, you don't.  My blog, my thoughts. Read or don't- I don't care.)

Why in the world would parents want to remember the experience of their precious son or daughter's first visit to Santa with red faces, screams and tears?

We took Matthew to the circus when he was about three.  From the instant he spotted a clown, he was terrified.  Did I at that instant insist that he get as close to the clown as possible?  Nope.  For our entire experience of the show, we stayed as far away from the clown as we could get.

He's 13 now, and if you ask him, he remembers loving the circus, but hating the clowns.  Seriously.

Same goes for Santa.  Everytime we happened to be in the mall at Christmas time, he was pretty much the only kid who wasn't clammering to get in line to get close to the jolly ole elf.  As a matter of fact, when he was around four years old, as we were passing the incredibly long line of anxious kids and harried mothers, he said to me, "Mama, walk faster.  I don't wanna look at that man."

Lucky me.

So, in case this isn't clear, forgive me, but I will never understand what the big deal is if your kid is too afraid to sit on Santa's lap.  So what?  Who cares if you stood in line for an hour and then the kid freaked out.  Is that the point at which you say "Now, honey, you need to sit on Santa's lap." or "Let's get out of here!" ?  And to document the insanity with pictures? Craziness.

Is it more for the parents or the kids?  I sat on Santa's lap all of once, and I don't even remember it.  There's a picture and it's pretty tame, but Mom decided that since I didn't care whether I sat on Santa's lap or not that it was okay if I didn't.  And guess what?  I still got nice gifts, some that I still treasure to this day.

Now, I know that my nephew and my two neices have indeed sat on Santa's lap.  And while the pictures look like they just may be a teensy bit frightened, it worked out okay.  And that's great.  But if your kid freaks out, is it the end of the world?

I just don't get what the big deal is.