Sands, seashells, and santa. (But not in that order.)

I'm generally not one to rant about the commercialism of the holiday season. I actually love all the commercialism. As far as I'm concerned,the more lights and decorations, the better. Go ahead, play that Christmas music in November. And I'm not gonna lie - I love the presents. I love shopping for presents, I love wrapping them, I love seeing them all around the Christmas tree, and, yes, I love to open them. I wish I were a better person, but I am who I am.

But, this last Sunday when commercialism quite literally stood between my camera and a super sweet Christmas memory, I was ready to kick commercialism in the teeth.

Except if I did that, then I'd be on the news, and I'd become another one of those stories that make people hate the holiday season. So I kept my feet to myself.

So here's what happened. We took Lily to see Santa. I really had no idea how she'd react. Last year, she was having none of that, but she's older and braver now. We've been reading stories about Santa lately, so she knows who he is.

At first, she looked at him skeptically, while I looked at the signs telling me I had to keep my camera behind this line. Fine. Fair enough. I can stay out of the way of your camera, and your flash, and your whatever.

Yes, I know Santa is there as a prop to make parents pay money for substandard photos. He-LLO - I'm a picture freak. Even with my camera in hand, I'm still their target audience. But you can't tell me that if they don't sell enough pictures, Santa won't have any money to feed his reindeer. And I'm completely okay with standing outside of their set-up. Really.

But then there was Santa's little helper. First of all, he wasn't even wearing his elf uniform. I wasn't really sure what his purpose was. Then I figured it out. His job was to stand in front of mom's camera.
Of the whole experience, what I really wanted to capture was Lily's first reaction to Santa. But I didn't.
I tried another angle. Oh, look, a cash register.
So we bought their stupid picture. And it's fine. It's lovely. Cheesey border and all. Stare at the camera shot. A touch out of focus, too, considering it's a photo I had to pay money for.
So what else could I do, really? Be happy with that and call it a day? Yeah, no.

The only redeeming part of visiting Santa for me was, well, Santa. He didn't care about their camera or my camera, and he sat and chatted with Lily. He told me he couldn't quite hear what she said she wanted, he said she has such a soft voice (sure, Santa, except when she doesn't). So I clarified for him that she wants a "pink one motorcycle."
After that we went to the beach. Our plan was just to go to Johns Pass and have some pizza, pretty much just because we haven't been by the water in so long. It was chilly, but not too bad. Kinda nice, actually.

All Lily wanted to do was go to the beach. So we did. She loves to play in the sand. It didn't seem to bother her at all that it was pretty windy.
I had a fix for that, anyway. She filled her bucket with sand and patted it down with purpose. I probably have thousands of pictures of her doing something. Looking intensely down at stickers, crayons, puzzles, sand, whatever.

We have photographic evidence that I was there, too. (And Khan. Or some stranger with a camera. Could go either way.) She allowed me to help her a little.

I don't know why I keep posting the stupidest pictures I have of myself.

Finally, she got bored with the sand when she was distracted by seashells.

And she was off to find more.

Daddy helped.

Then these blue rental chairs caught her eye. The beach is pretty uncrowded in December, so no one seemed to mind us using them for a moment.

Except Lily. She wanted that moment to go on and on, forever perhaps. I told her again it was time to go. She said "No, Mommy. I sleepy." Oh, child of mine. You're going to have to do better than that. I know you much too well to believe that.