Friday, December 27, 2013

Santa's Lap

I thought about calling this post "Holiday Torture" but then decided that's too extreme. Certainly not my intent to torture my granddaughter when we took her over to sit on Santa's lap a few days ago. I was, however, having a sense of deja vu as I recalled doing this with my own daughter 20 years ago when she was about a year old, and remembering how she screamed as we tried to sit her on Santa's lap. We were advised to "back her in", meaning have her face the parent, so as to avoid seeing the scary man she was being handed to. But just like 20 years ago, this technique didn't work and my granddaughter had a brief but very robust cry as my camera went click-click-click! I used Photoshop to merge these four photos together.
This got me thinking about digging through our old holiday photos to compare my daughter's and granddaughter's photos. Below on the right is a scan of my kids on Santa's lap in 1993. My daughter was about a year old, and on the left (20 years later practically to the day) is a shot of my granddaughter at about the same age. See the resemblance?!
Wishing you a happy and healthy holiday season and new year!!

14 comments:

  1. Awww, I remember my eldest being terrified of Santa. Poor little baby girl. Hopefully she'll look back and laugh at these photos. :)

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  2. Of course the trauma of a 1-year-old is funny after 20 years:):) When the time comes that you are a grandparent, the tantrums of the grand kids are amusing (to me) and let them run its course, instead of frantically making them feel better, as I did with my own children.
    Question: use Photoshop, but my knowledge is limited to make the pics look better. How do you merge pics together? Is that called "stitching" photos together? Wishing you a happy New Year!

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    1. Thanks, Jeannette. Sending you an e-mail on this, but no, a little different from stitching. I think stitching is the term used for making panorama photos by combining photos that are compatible on the edges so they can be "stitched" together to look like one image.

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  3. Years of therapy to come!! I'm not sure the the term "nice" is appropriate here for this picture - but I feel it is likely to become a family favourite!

    Cheers - Stewart M - Melbourne

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  4. hee hee...
    If ol' Santa had a buck for every time this has happened, he could hang it up at the North Pole and retire to Palm Springs...
    :-)

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  5. You know after the first experience there would not have been a second, nothing worse than hearing a kid screaming in fear

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  6. An experience we all where undergoing although in the Netherlands its sinterklaas at 5 december. I can remember it from my fifth year but no pictures then.

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  7. Cute pics! Our granddaughter is only 8 months, so she'll visit Santa next year. Santa, however, DID appear at the Red Kettle cafe up in Idyllwild and our 4 year old grandson was speechless! (for once!)
    Cheers!
    Cheryl Ann

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  8. Oh, poor little granddaughter. Santa is kind of spooky and strange to many little ones. I love how you made the most out of the situation.

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  9. Scarred for life. Best not take her to the circus to meet a clown.

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  10. I hope my attitude is not too extreme - but forcing a child to be with a stranger that frightens them is not such a good idea these days - with strangers lurking about, aiming to do harm to little ones, especially girls.

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  11. Yep, a clear resemblance. Great photos, all of them.

    Best wishes for the new year!

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  12. Great shots! Have a Happy New Year!

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  13. I totally get crying with Santa. He scared the bejeezus out of me when I was little.

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