Santa makes me mad!

So, I had a Christmas session with my cousin's kids last Friday. I wanted to break out of the old, overdone, family portraits in a pretty park. My original plan was to have them meet me at the beach and then a certain someone (ho, ho, ho) would drop by for a surprise visit. In my head, the kids would be overjoyed and I could capture their excitement and surprise with my camera. I love capturing raw emotions like this.

Anyway, fast forward to the actual shoot. We meet at the beach and it turns out that IKE washed it all out and the park was just now getting around to fixing it - which meant they had the entire run of the beach closed down. That's what I get for not doing a pre-run of the location!We decide to move the shoot to my Nana Ruth's backyard and we had to move quickly because we were losing daylight (I usually schedule shoots an hour or so before sunset because that's the best light out there).

We get there and I make a call to the special someone to go ahead and re-route his sled. About 15 minutes into the session, in walks Santa. But, instead of the excitement and cheer I was expecting, we got sheer fright! Not a single child was excited to see him. I think the surprise really threw them all for a loop and they got scared insted.... The pictures were pretty adorable anyhow - maybe not frame worthy but something I know I will treasure :)

Oh, and afterwards, I asked Sara why she didn't want to sit on Santa's lap. Her response was "Santa makes me mad!" - maybe he didn't bring her what she wanted last year? Hope he can fix things this year :)