I'm a glutton for punishment

Can I tell you how I spent last Saturday??  The LAST Saturday before Christmas weekend?  I decided the kids and I should go to the Mall of America.

So we left for the mall about 11.  I wanted to pick up a couple gifts at the Apple store, and I had promised the kids we'd go see Santa.  The local malls have instituted a new "no personal camera" policy which means starting this year, you can't take your own picture....you have to buy theirs.  And the cheapest photo package runs $22.  No thanks. 

Rumor had it that the Mall of America was still letting people use their own cameras, and since Katie is in school during the week and I have "Pebbles" til 5:30 every night - that leaves the weekends.  Traffic was NOT bad at all - I got into the parking garage and drove around for 20 minutes on the same level looking for a spot.  I had TWO stolen right from under me.  Remember that scene in Fried Green Tomatoes where Kathy Bates is sitting in her car with her blinker on, waiting for a car to pull out - they wave to her acknowledging that she is going to take their spot after they leave and WHOOSH....in swoops a fast little sports car.  Yeah.  That same exact scenario happened TWICE!  Luckily I didn't go "Towanda" on their ass.

So then we drove around an outside lot looking, but after 10 minutes I felt it was hopeless even getting inside the door.  So - we decided to go to Ridgedale Mall instead.  It has an Apple store, and a Santa - I just wouldn't be able to take pictures.  Ok.

So we get to the mall (much easier parking) and head straight for Santa.  A lady at the entrance says that the line is closed.  Santa takes a break from 1-2.  It is now 12:25, but we can start lining up at 1:00 to see him at 2.  I decide to get to the Apple store, pick up our things and see where that puts us.  It didn't take too long in the Apple store - 20 minutes and we were done.  I decided I didn't want to wait over an hour for Santa - so we'd head out to pick up my niece at the U of MN (who was babysitting that night for us) and think about the Eden Prairie Mall. 

So I pick up Sarah....and head to our THIRD mall of the day.  We get to Santa and of course he's on break from 1-2, but it's about 1:45 now and there's only 5 people in line.  We decide to wait, which was the BEST decision because the line quickly grew to 30+.  It still took another 15 minutes once Santa got there...but we accomplished the mission of visiting Santa without losing too much holiday spirit. 

Next year, though - we'll plan a bit better.