Merry hangover

Queuing for 90 minutes to see Santa gave my hangover quite the kick along yesterday. As is the way with irony, Sprog 1 woke with a sudden and burning desire to meet the man in red. Must have been all those carols the night before. I suggested we visit Santa at our local shopping centre, but no dice. Sprog 1 wanted the holy grail of Santa experiences, The Magic Cave in the city. I warned her the queue would be horrendous, but she wouldn’t be swayed. As we joined the throngs on the escalators, Sprog 2 breathing heavily beside us (she’s not good with escalators since dolly’s pram got stuck in one … and Pop trapped her finger in another), I feared it would be worse than horrendous. And it was – at one stage the terrifying words “two hours” were uttered by the Santa photo spruiker, which fortunately cleared a good 10 people in front of us. I prodded the Sprogs to go and explore the toy department, but they refused. They were determined to share every interminable moment with me, bless them, and not a Diet Coke machine in sight. We practised smiles for a while: “Try one with teeth … no, open your eyes … bigger smile … not that big … perfect!” We watched as the little boy in front of us threw an almighty tantrum every two minutes, each time his dad made him give the mobile phone game to his brother. I amused myself by ranking other children’s attractiveness against mine. They all lost, naturally, even the pudding in the red tutu with the spiral curls. The Sprogs were given helium balloons and accidentally let go of them, oooh, 20 times. Finally, we made it to the entrance to the cave. Sprog 1 still refused to explore, she wanted it to be a surprise as we went along. The only surprise she got was that it wasn’t worth the wait. Lots of cute puppet diorama thingies, but not really compelling enough to keep you occupied for the 20 interminable minutes you spent standing in front of each one. At one point, a woman tried to hustle her granddaughter into the front of the queue. There was NO WAY parents who’d waited 90 minutes were going to stand for that sort of nonsense. Sadly, Santa’s elf broke up the bitch fight before it got really interesting. Finally, we were ushered into Santa’s tiny cubicle. Santa’s beard was a little skew-whiff and I could see the elastic. But he was kind and doddery. He asked what the Sprogs wanted. They requested Monster High dolls (tick!) and Zhu-Zhu pets (tick!). I began to understand why the queue was so glacial as I spent 10 minutes rejecting photo after photo – Santa’s eyes shut, Sprog 1’s dress runched, Sprog 1 not smiling, Sprog 2’s hair messy. I eventually settled for one with Sprog 1 looking a little startled. Santa’s elf/official photographer breathed a sigh of relief and printed my shots, while we hung awkwardly around Santa, conversation exhausted. She checked the corridor to make sure none of the other Santa cubicles were open (Elf rule no 1: never shatter illusions) and sent us on our way. I muttered the same words I utter every year: “Never again”. Then we trudged across the road to join another queue, for Sprog 2’s festive must-do – the train in Santaland. It’s enough to drive a mother to drink, well that was my excuse for last night. Tonight? Hey, it’s Christmas!

DIET TRANSGRESSIONS: Small piece of sourdough toast with truffled eggs. Ooh-la-la.

TONIGHT’S DINNER: Homemade meat pies for the Sprogs. I’m out!