The Quest to see Santa

For most normal people the quest to see Santa would simply require a trip to the local shopping Mall. Then again, we are not normal people. We as a family are not really big on pushing "the guy in the big red suit" as the main Christmas focus. We go along with the childhood innocence but leave it at that. I usually try and take Jackson to see Santa around his birthday as tradition.
So this year, we went to Raleigh and ended up in line to see Santa at Crab tree Valley Mall around 1pm. Well, we see the big guy get up and walk away! Are you kidding? Apparently, Santa needs a lunch break. It lasts an hour. I con Jackson into going to the Lego store and coming back right before he returns.
We get back in line about 2pm to find a LONGER wait and the kind lady in front of us tells us that the wait time from where we are standing is about 1.5 hours as THIS Santa takes about 5 minutes with EACH child. SERIOUSLY? I was about ready to spill the beans right there! We don't need 5 minutes, we merely need 5 SECONDS. "Yada, Yada, I want Lego's, Yada Merry Christmas!" Done! Well, since Jackson is my reasonable child, I managed to talk him into going to see Santa another day in Fayetteville. We did get up to Clayton, NC to see the "Christmas Lights on the Nuese" aka "Lights in a field" and there was a Santa you could visit there for a small fee of $7. I am WAY to cheap to pay for a darkened photo with Santa with a Camera not even as good as my own.
Fast forward a few weeks and we're down to the wire. I avoid the Fayetteville Mall at ALL costs. The week of Christmas, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Yes, I went there. I got there as early as I thought possible and it was NOT early enough. There was already a line from Santa to the carousel. Not happening, I didn't care at this point if we even saw Santa at all. I wasn't sure Lincoln would even have anything to do with him. Again, dealing with my most reasonable child, I promised we would get up EARLY and be at the mall the following day to eat breakfast, see Santa and ride the carousel. That's just what we did. We got there about 930 and...GOT IN LINE. Yes, there was already a line. We were even confronted by a Grinch of a lady that claimed she was in front of us. (Oh, she wasn't!) All in the name of Santa Claus. Geez. About an hour and $20 bucks later, we walked away with....(drumroll please)...
a Crappy photo with Santa. On a more cheerful holiday note, Lincoln seemed to love the big guy so that made it all worth it...almost. Then we proceeded to ride the carousel and eat our chicken biscuits at 11am. Now, that might have made it worth it. And now for the photos to prove it!