Apparently the mall Santa needs to Up his Game...

Mr. Z is a thinker. He possesses wisdom and understanding far beyond his six years that is humorous at times and alarming at others.

For the past few months he has been trying to rationalize the existence of Santa. He has a strong opinion that magic is not real - which has caused him to doubt - but wanting so badly to believe he came to the dubious conclusion that "the Christmas kind of magic is real but all the other magic stuff is made up by grown-up's who are trying to trick kids."

It kind of reminds me of the time a certain cousin told Miss 'A' that the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa were not real. Later, my daughter told me "I kind figured that it was true about the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy but why would Jessica lie about Santa"?

Today at the Mall Mr. Z begged me to stop and see Santa. He had changed his mind from wanting a crayon maker to "wanting 2 pet frogs more than anything in the world". (Incidentally I already have the frogs because I knew he would want them - they have been living in my closet since Thanksgiving due to a shipping miscalculation on my part).

While standing in line Mr. Z evaluated the man in the red suit.

He started with the beard - which passed scrutiny because it looked quite real. Unfortunately this Santa did not look plump enough to satisfy my son. Plus, this Santa had gold zippers on his boots which Mr. 'Z' told me was entirely innacurate. (Apparently there are no zippers on authentic Santa boots - just in case you want perform an inspection at your local mall).

But - willing to give him a chance - my boy told me that he was just going to ask 'that guy' if he was the real Santa.

When we got to the front of the line Mr. Z climbed onto Santa's lap.

Santa: Hello - what is your name?
Mr. Z: (rolls eyes) That's it. Mom - this guy doesn't even know my name I told you he wasn't fat enough.

He hopped of the surprised Santa's lap grabbed a sucker from a big bin (without waiting for it to be offered) and kind of shook it at me.

Mr. Z: See - he doesn't even have candy canes. Sheesh! Let's go!

And so we did.

Good thing I didn't pay for an overpriced picture of my suspicious, attitudinal, grabby six year old rolling his eyes at a sucker-bearing, gaunt Santa with gold zippers on his boots.

Sheesh!