Santaland Survival
Until yesterday, my only experience of Macy’s 34th Street Santaland was David Sedaris’s Santaland Diaries, which while hilarious, made me a little leery of the whole affair. But, the grandparents were in town and we were feeling merry and we thought we’d give it a shot.
Observation #1: If you can survive the first floor of Macy’s on a December weekend, you can survive anything. Unless, of course, you have an allergy to giant clouds of cologne. Then you’re doomed.
Observation #2: The SantaLand elves seem genuinely happy and merry, doing their best to interact with the stone-faced freaked out children. I hope that whatever makes them so happy is subsidized by Macy’s. They do a fantastic job.
Observation #3: The attractions that await you inside SantaLand are, depending on your child, better than the visit with the big man himself. Olive was captivated by penguins and trains and lights and dancing bears.
Observation #4: The “maze” that takes to see “the one and only Santa” is ingenious, though not likely to fool older kids. The boy behind us wanted to go see Santa again, which could only result in a rude awakening.
Observation #5: We decided this must be the most plum Santa job around, because the Santa we met was adorable. Positively top notch and authentic, and not in any way resembling Bad Santa.
Observation #6: No matter how adorable Santa is, your child very well may be traumatized by the event.
Observation #7: The hilarity of seeing your traumatized child in a Santa photo is enough to make you and your spouse shell out 20 bucks for a digital print to take home for posterity.
Bravo, Macy’s. Bravo.
