Our WinterFest Santa Visit

Tonight our family froze outside for an hour of good fun at our small town's WinterFest. The party started at 5pm but we showed up at 6:15 and got front row parking. As in we literally couldn't have parked any closer to the event. Then we walked the half a block to find the end of what appeared to be the Santa Visit line. It's not hard to miss with a zillion kids, strollers, and babies. We waited 15 minutes in the cold before Santa arrived via motorcycle accomapanied by another 45 bikes. We were in the front row and got a great view and it was really cute to watch Grace light up at the sight of Santa. Ethan was much more impressed by the bikes then the big guy in red. After Santa turned the lights on the big tree in front of the courthouse he was ready to begin the onslaught of children eager to ply him with their toy requests.

Grace was very excited to see Santa. She already visited him last weekend but we didn't get any photos because that Santa was charging $5 for me to take my own photos. I really don't think so. He was a very good Santa though and Grace liked talking to him. This Santa was less of a talker but he still did a good job. Ethan got pretty nervous about the whole thing when he got up close and got the gist of what we wanted him to do. I was almost sure that I was only going to get photos of Ethan crying (observe the upper right photo of the two kids with Santa below) when Santa whipped out the candy canes. That did it. Ethan's cries stopped and he craned his neck around to get a better look at the scary guy that handed out candy. Handing out candy made Santa much more interesting. Grace made sure to tell Santa about the Princess Tiana doll she wants for Christmas (which I'm still trying to hunt down...I refuse to pay 2x-3x the retail price to the idiots on Amazon!) and Ethan asked for a basketball.

After the short visit with Santa was done we headed back to our primo parking spot with a very cranky boy and a very excited girl. I think Ethan was cranky because his hands were cold but that was his own fault for refusing to wear the mittens I just got for him. At least I was able to force the hat to stay on. Hopefully he learned his lesson and will keep the dang mittens on next weekend for the Festival of Lights Parade! Our entire WinterFest experience lasted one hour from start to finish. A lot shorter then last year when we arrived too late and at the end of the line!

I used a seventies action on the photos from tonight for fun. The photos are pretty grainy because I didn't use a flash and instead cranked up my ISO to 1600 and used my f/2.8 50mm lens. I did shoot in RAW which helped quite a bit. So since I knew my photos were going to be grainy I figured I could have fun with it! The lighting by Santa was a lot better so I moved my ISO down to 800. I only had about 30 seconds to work so I moved FAST! All in all I don't think they came out too bad considering the lack of available light and my disinterest in flashing the bejezuz out of everyone.