AusDoCC Family Stories
Our magical sensitive Santa experience
Article By Pieta Shakes and with thanks to Source Kids
As a mumma to a beautiful but sensitive little soul I’m getting quite accustomed to avoiding crowds and chaos. We shop when it’s quiet, we stay home on weekends, we play in parks when others are at school and unfortunately we miss out on some of the more popular family events and activities, even those memorable moments like meeting Santa.
But not this year, this year we jumped at the opportunity to meet Sensitive Santa! And, I swear, he was surely the REAL Santa.
I stumbled across a shared post in a local special needs parents Facebook group advertising ‘Sensitive Santa’ and immediately booked in. Twenty minutes to ourselves to meet Santa in a dedicated quiet space with a photographer off to the side taking shots without the whole posing expectation sounded like an experience we could manage – it sounded like an opportunity we couldn’t refuse.
With each session booked it was a requirement to complete a short phone questionnaire in order to help the team understand the child better, to make the day run as smoothly as possible. This was a little anxiety invoking as my daughter isn’t really a fan of me on the phone. What is it with kids and phone calls? They always NEED you right at that moment! So, instead I emailed the organisers and asked if we could do the questionnaire over email – to which they happily obliged. 10
In preparation for the day we were emailed a video link to watch at home and we spent the lead up week chatting about meeting Santa and even writing a wish list to hand to Santa. The day came quickly and we headed off to meet the man in red.
When we arrived at the library I thought I had muddled up the day as it was closed, but quickly someone came to the door to meet us. We had the whole quiet library to ourselves to prepare for going in, no crowds, no chaos. This couldn’t have been any more perfect, considering we couldn’t even enter a different library recently as my daughter was concerned with how many children were there (silly me for going just after story time). The lovely librarian subtly took the small gift I had brought along for Santa to give my daughter and in we went without too much delay.
We entered Santa’s magical room and Santa greeted my daughter by her name. He carried on chatting and welcoming us and made no remarks about my daughter hiding into me or avoiding his attempts to say hello or give high fives. He made no comments about her desire to pull out my phone and escape into a Snapchat filter avoiding interactions with others, he simply continued to be welcoming. He kicked the bubble machine into gear and read through her wish list and my daughter began to watch out of the corner of her eye, then she melted a little and smiled. After 5 minutes there were many smiles, after 15 minutes she started chatting and Santa couldn’t get a word in. 11
Sitting down together on the floor my daughter told Santa about her cardboard Peppa Pig set we made and about her fairy house, she happily chatted about her dog and our gardening the day before. I’m not too sure how much of it made sense to anyone but me but I guess Santa knows all, so he happily listened with interest and allowed her to control the reigns.
When time was almost up Santa received a phone call from Mrs Claus, he didn’t answer but put the phone on silent and told us that he better call her back in a few minutes… With that magical transition it was time to finish up. My daughter had received gifts and even more importantly had a very special time chatting one on one with Santa.
Within a few moments the hundreds of photos taken by the two subtle photographers were uploaded on to memory stick and handed to us to take away, along with our beautiful memories of such a magical experience.
More on Source Kids: Sensitive Santa sessions around Australia
