We had a great experience at Sensitive Santa at Westshore Mall last weekend. We’ve not always had the best experience and outcome with visiting Santa but were very happy with this years opportunity. Last year we tried three different times all paid opportunities to get a family picture and picture with Santa. All three times, it failed! We didn’t get any usable images. 
I cancelled my scheduled sensitive Santa at our local play area and opted to try the free event at the mall. The Westshore Mall in combination with USF-CARD hosted an event Sunday morning from 9am to 11am. In the ad, they even stated that a free 5×7 print was provided for each family. The stores that day were scheduled to open at noon. The music was off and the lights down low. The line was short with plenty of activities to occupy the waiting children.
Santa was really patient and the camera people would take multiple click attempts to get the right picture. We were able to get photos of our kids and we brought our extended family and were able to get all the kids in the family together. It was great!
Tips and Thoughts on having a successful Santa visit
- look for free events and or sensitive events
- look for events were the day of the week and or time is not when people would normally be off; like during the week during work and school hours or Sunday morning hours
- bring toys and entertainment
- dress comfortable but cute; sometimes the really pretty clothes are very scratchy or rough
- when it fails, try again or wait till next year and try again
Ruthfulness 