I didn't really do the special visits to Santa as a child. I didn't like the experience of talking to a strange man in a costume. Mainly because even as a small child, I knew it was an imposter dressed up as Santa and it was rather scary and I knew the REAL Santa lives in Lapland.
Cos I wasn't fucking dumb six year old.
How did Santa know what I wanted? How did he know what you wanted as kids?
He got a letter delivered by post (I believe he does email these days too) or he 'just knew' because he was Santa and knew what every child wanted, not because he was told by one of these money grabbing charlatans.
Then he comes to deliver presents by sleigh with his real life magic reindeer on Christmas Eve. Coming down the chimney or letting himself in with his magic key or fairy door if you live somewhere without a chimney.
The way you are going on about it, you are in serious danger of sounding like you are saying that Christmas will be totally ruined if you haven't done Tat Santa.
I'm absolutely not saying don't do the 'Christmas Event' with the sparkling lights, markets, decorations, tat and mulled wine etc etc. It is fun. But the Santa visit in the midst of it, shouldn't be the thing that makes or breaks it. You don't HAVE to do it.
If the visit to Santa is such a big deal go and do it properly, and get on a plane and go and see the snow, reindeers and Santa in bloody Lapland. (You are too late for this year, booking starts in January).
You seem to have forgotten and stopped believing in the Real Santa.
Santa is about the magic of him, not about hanging around shopping centres in a hut surrounded by astro turf covered with industrial cotton wool with a bunch of decorations which you've paid over the odds to enter.
Christmas for kids is about creating that magic of special memories and traditions. The visit to Plastic Santa isn't everything. You can't buy the best magic. Even with modern day rampant commercialism that doesn't change.
In buying into the whole Santa experience like this, you are inadvertently saying that if you don't visit Fake Santa that he won't come. Or you are missing out if you don't. What happens to the kids who can't visit Crap Santa? What does your child repeat to the other kids at school and how does that ruin the magic for others?
Santa should ultimately be about small little fun gifts and the ritual of it whilst you wait for the family to wake up, with the bigger gifts from parents later in the day. Why? Cos Santa thinks of all the kids, not just the rich kids. That's the fucking point - he delivers to ALL the good Christmas of the World - and that's why he's so amazing for managing to do it all in a single night. To be blunt about it: Santa is a Socialist not a Capitalist!!!
You need to leave space in your Christmas Dream so that the shopping centre visit to Santa isn't the main focal point and the be all and end all. That's for the magic of the big night.
THATS what will keep the magic alive for your kids longer than any Grotto. I speak as someone who still is visited by Santa on Christmas Eve aged 39, long after I was too tall to sneak into Tat Santa's Den and greedily ask for the newest toy with a cracking Christmas advertising campaign.
What do you remember from Christmas? Truthfully, I remember the traditions and the rituals not the presents. I remember spending time with cousins. I remember my Dad's work Christmas Party and know that Santa was there, but that was not the memory that has stayed with me. The excitement was never about a man in a red suit.
Seriously, I think you need to re-evaluate what you are doing and what is really important and exactly what the magic is about. Use your imagination.
HTH.