If the kid is scared or upset why force them -just for a picture? When my daughter was little she was afraid so I didn't make her sit on Santa's lap. A picture was not worth scaring my child.

Agreed... My kids are 8 and 10 and have never had pictures with Santa. At first they were scared, now they just think it's creepy and weird.

Why would parents force this on their kids??

Exactly. Why do we do this? If they don't want to, they don't want to. Respect that the same way that you'd want someone to respect your not wanting to do something like sing with everyone else during the party. If we respect our kids that way, they might be more inclined to want to try it at the next opprotunity.

Have a 21 year old daughter who still cannot stand anybody in a costume!

I told junior, " That is SAnta! You WILL sit on his lap! He brought you presents and you will show that adult some respect or you get nothing for christmas and a spanking to boot!" Well, that fixed the problem. He is 17 now and a well adjusted child. Very respectful to adults and not afraid of Santa. No worse than the hard core brain washing in school.

As a photographer that has taken thousands of photos of children with Santa I can tell you that most children between the ages of 18 months and 3 years are afraid of any large costumed character; e.g, Santa, the Easter Bunny, Mickey Mouse etc. I would advise parents to visit the Santa before taking their child to visit to determine whether the photographer and crew know how to deal with children. If they know how it can make the parents life a lot earier. If the parents really want a photo, there are techniques to get the photo with creating a scene, creating fear in the child and making them cry. BUT it takes cooperation of the parent, the photographer and the staff. It can be done, but space here does not permit me to detail how to train the people taking the photos and what they have to tell the parents so the a memorable photo can be taken.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

When I was a kid, I was terrified of Santa. I had three cousins, all about 20 years older than me, who dressed like Santa & went to all the younger cousins' houses. They were served liquor at every house & they got very drunk. They threatened to put us in their sacks if we were not good, and they did put my cousin Ron in one of their sacks.

My husband is a martial arts instructor and every year at the studio christmas party "Santa" (aka another instructor) is involved in some sort of demonstration showing how "Santa trains hard and knows self defense too!!" The kids LOVE it!! BUT this year our daughter (2yrs old) was very excited when she first saw Santa... clapping and squealing YAY! Until Santa beat up Daddy (as part of the demo) - instant crying and yelling NO NO NO... tried to get her to go see Santa and have him say sorry to Daddy... nope... She hates him!! And all of this the night before we are to get family pics with Santa - thanks honey!

The first time I took my kids to see santa (at their different ages) they showed no interest in him ... my son did up until a mall santa told him he knew my son had been bad ... which broke his little heart (and so not true!) ... I decided that was NOT worth a picture, and thankfully NEVER stood in line again. I kept the tradition of santa going in my house until each of my kids asked me "is santa real?". Neither were crushed when they found out and both were around 5 (eight years between my oldest and youngest). I asked my daughter when she was like 11 how she felt when she foudn out the truth? She said she was so happy to know that santa was not real, because she thought that we (her parents) didn't love her because we never bought her presents, all their gifts said from santa. She said the first thing that popped in her mind when she found out the truth was "My mommy does love me and all those presents were from her!" At 14 now she loves that I still play santa ... and secretly stuff her stocking full of gifts, or put out a few more unwrapped presents while she sleeps Christmas Eve. I love making Christmas about my children ... no matter how old they are ... I still have a lot of tricks up my sleeve to make Christmas special for them.

My niece has a love/hate relationship with Santa. On one hand, she loves him because she knows if she's good, he'll give her presents. On the other hand, she'd rather walk on the other side of the street by herself than go anywhere near Santa!