Dear Mall Santas, You're on OUR List -- and Not the Good One

Ive been happy with our photos over the years. We've been going to the same place & Santa for 7 years. Our local Santa and his helpers spent 15 minutes or so with us getting the perfect photo. First helping the kids get comfortable and then helping us get all three kids to look at the camera at the same time. We paid $40 for 4 5x7s, 2 3x5s, 8 wallets, a photo cd plus $20 gift card to Shutterfly (where I am a customer regularly). Guess it all depends on where you go and how much you are willing to spend on novelty items.

Except you're forgetting:

Mall rent (which is outrageous in 2011)

Insurance (you bet your bottom dollar when kids are involved, insurance is too)

Printing prices (yes, they're shoddy prints, but ink is outrageous)

Promotional materials (flyers, TV, signage, newspapers and radio DO add up; our small town, podunk, nothing of a newspaper chargers over $200 for a quarter space ad)

Multiple employees making minimum wage (yes, those two elves you see don't work 14 hour shifts, 7 days per week, so there are multiple people to pay, every day)

Yes, the corporate sponsors do things like give free photo gift cards, a coloring book and a coupon -- to get their own name out to the families that visit the Mall Santa. Not to make a buck and not to shave off your price point either. That's their agenda.

I'm not defending Mall Santas because I enjoy the process. I hate it. I know it's a rip off. I know I take better pictures. I know that a Mall Santa will be the first thing that makes my sons' doubt Santa as a whole. But it is what it is. They're not huge, money-wielding gigs. They're an attempt to bring a little magic with a slight overhead. Boycott all you want, but the truth is that people want the magic in this cruel world -- and they'll pay for it in one way or another.

Santa is like sex. / We wonder what the kids know / but don't dare ask them.

http://www.suburbanhaiku.com/christmas-special.htm...

Here's where I come out of the closet and admit I did a gig taking photos of the Easter Bunny at my hometown mall. I made minimum, so did the bunny. It's the owner of the racket that is raking it in. Santa is -- if my Easter Bunny experience is valid -- an off-duty cop earning extra money for his kids over the holidays.

How can I get in on making some of that gangster money?? Mall Santa is officially boycotted!

I have never done the math before, but looking at it this way - that is CRAZY!! I need to figure out a way to get this gig!

Santa should be sporting some BLING for that kind of money!

For those prices Santa should at least look like he does some physical activities during his off time!

Thank goodness my girls have outgrown Santa.