The Santa Shack

When deciding on a neighborhood in Salt Lake City we had very little to go on. By pure chance we ended up in Sugar House, one of the oldest neighborhoods in town that is far enough away from downtown and the university to make for affordable living, without being in the 'burbs. A great mix of "normal" people lives here; students and families, older folks, white and blue collar workers. My favorite aspect of the neighborhood is that everything is within walking distance, including three big parks and two grocery stores (Whole Foods for Food [in the Michael Pollanean sense] and a regular one for everything else). What we don't have (not yet anyway; plans to change this are underway) is a large shopping mall. There's no Macy's in sight, and because of that we also don't have a mall Santa.

I hadn't thought about mall Santas before--or Santa Claus in general (after all, I grew up with the Weihnachtsmann)--until the topic came up among my mommy friends. I didn't think I was going to take Conrad to a mall, wait in line, and then plop him onto the lap of a stranger, especially since he is going through a bad case of separation anxiety. I changed my mind, though, when I saw the Sugar House Santa Shack, which, as I later learned, is somewhat famous among locals and an articulation of the neighborly anti-big-box-store attitude. A small wooden shack with a large Santa inside, just two blocks away.

So I bundled up the Bean, put him in his stroller, and took him to Santa. As anticipated (feared!), he lost his marbles when he met the hairy fella dressed in red. It took the photographer several stuffed animals that she had to throw at me (!) to squeeze a tiny smile out of Conrad. But here it is: a photo with Santa.