Had a festive day out booked for 4 year old DS for a few weeks - sitting smug thinking it was all sorted. Read between the lines when checking recently and realised there is no meeting with Santa (despite it being £54 for 90 minutes ! Aghhh! Cue panicky trying to find a Santa 'late' in the day. Have booked a fab one but will be taking DS out of school for a day as all weekends are booked up (breaking up super late here this year) I am so stressed! If you don't book in October you don't stand a chance! Tell me it wasn't always thus!
No guilt about taking him out - he is stupid smart and massively treading water. Will give the others a chance to catch up and it's only one day! Santa matters! It's just the hassle! Timed tickets and two hour ques! Can't it be simpler!? Even our local garden centre was booked up!
I book for Father Christmas, just to try to cut down the queuing time (3 dc, all have ASD)
I cannot imagine just turning up and taking pot luck with eg shopping centre one (he shopping centre we usually go to I think you have to book anyway) - I’d lose the will to live waiting!
What a stress! I’m sitting here trying to recall if I have ever taken any of my 3dcs to see Santa . If we did it clearly wasn’t memorable . I’ll ask the teens when they come home later if they remember.
I have very high Santa standards after having the first two Santas I took ds to get all handsy with me. Nothing spoils a Christmas memory more than knowing Santa is a perv!
Thankfully I have a great Santa booked for early December and I've just seen that a lovely cafe near me is repeating it breakfast with Santa on my birthday so I'm booking that as my gift to myself. Both Santas look like Richard Attenborough in Miracle on 34th st, so are just perfect! And a local historical site has a huge Christmas experience that only costs a few euro to attend if you don't meet Santa. So that will be lovely some evening nearer Christmas.
Go to a local primary school's winter fair. About 3 quid, a Santa and a present that's almost certainly a book. Job done. If your school doesn't do it another will.
Sorry - am aware that excessive use of ! Is a sign of an unbalanced mind. Have now calmed down. I work in a school so definitely wouldn't do a school. A Santa has to be convincing and enthusiastic not some poor male relative coerced into dressing in a cheap suit to awkwardly interact with children.
It was said in a tongue in cheek way, though a child that can read and count in 2s, 5s and 10s etc in reception is surely treading water. On maternity currently so won't have the chance to take DS out again. I don't make the rules so hardly a hypocrite. Maybe if I was education minister
Won't Santa be coming to school though? At Christmas party? Or Christmas fair? I can't conceive of paying more than a couple of quid and thinking about it further in advance than the previous day. Sounds like you're contributing to the "industry" you're complaining out OP!
! Aghhh! Cue panicky trying to find a Santa 'late' in the day. Have booked a fab one but will be taking DS out of school for a day as all weekends are booked up (breaking up super late here this year) I am so stressed! If you don't book in October you don't stand a chance! Tell me it wasn't always thus!
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. If we did it clearly wasn’t memorable 
. I’ll ask the teens when they come home later if they remember.
