Great, but creepy too

My Dad (aka "Buddy") works at a sporting goods store. They have a Santa's workshop extravaganza every weekend from now 'till Christmas. You can go and pick up a card (thanks Buddy!) with a time on it and then show up and take pictures with Santa. With NO line. With a great looking, super nice Santa. It was fantastic. Oh, and the crafty Doodle even got to make a glitter pine cone ornament. Yea! A messy craft made outside the home!

However, the store is decorated in the widely popular "more taxidermy is better" style, with creepy stuffed critters peering out at you from pretty much everywhere. Including squirrels. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see giant stuffed real reindeer (or caribou) on either side of Santa. "Hi everyone, I brought the reindeer with me! Don't mind them, they just like to stand there and stare blankly at you! Look, there's Rudolph, an incredibly realistic looking stuffed beast!" And they say that Santa and the reindeer aren't real. Ha!

On either side of the reindeer, there were shooting ranges. Yes, shooting ranges, where kids could take a gun and shoot lasers at targets mounted on all sorts of silhouette animals. Turkeys, quail, and even something that looked remarkably like Rudolph! "Yes, kids, step right up and kill Rudolph. Don't you remember how annonying he was in that Christmas video? Perhaps your parents can have him stuffed and mounted on your bedroom wall." Oh the perfect irony. Needless to say we did not participate. No wonder the Moo Bear was afraid of the whole Santa thing.

And don't get me started on the kids cammo clothes. No matter what your social and political views are, who thinks it is a good idea to make it harder to find kids? I can hardly keep track of them when we go to crowded places or when we play hide and seek, who wants to make them LESS visible?

So thanks to Buddy for an adventurous trip. We had a great time. And thanks to Sheila for spoiling us afterward.