Funny Santa pics during a not-so-fun holiday season

Maybe your family has one or two of them lying around — and maybe you find them as funny as we do: hilarious pictures of kids sitting on Santa‘s lap.

Not hilarious because they tugged on Santa’s beard or because of a quizzical look he gets on his face when a kid asks for a piece of tech he hadn’t heard of.

No, the gut-busting funny pics are the ones featuring a screaming not-quite-2-year-old who’s freaked out by Santa.

I know some people will find this mean, but does it make it seem less mean that the very same kids in the pictures now find them hilarious too?

As our little ones have grown, the Santa pictures have become different — and terror-free.

Then, this year’s Santa picture got really different and we saw a return of fear.

Not in the form of screaming children on Santa’s knee — but because of the unavailability of said jolly old elf’s knee.

I appreciate the innovation, but can I just say that I hope the “socially distanced Santa” picture will only exist this year?

Please?

It’s a nice optical illusion. My wife, my daughters and I appear to be hanging over the front — and Santa appears to be sitting way in in the back — of what looks like a 20-foot-long sleigh.

Very different.

But that doesn’t mean everything about the most different holidays ever has to be different.

With only four people around our Thanksgiving table, I still have plenty to be thankful for — especially when I think about a couple of topics we discussed on Arizona’s Morning News on Wednesday.

One being the massive number of potential evictions and foreclosures that the Phoenix area could see before the end of the year. The other being a report on how poorly students are doing with online-only learning.

My wife and I are fully employed (which means food) and we have a house (which means we have a place to put that smaller Thanksgiving table).

And while our kids aren’t doing all that great with online learning, we have resources to make that experience the best it can be.

But while I’m being thankful, I need to remember that my thankfulness shouldn’t end with Thanksgiving. My thanks needs to be manifested through giving — so others can get a little closer to the great life I have.

And I need to give with the same kind of vigor that I would need to muster if I found out Santa wasn’t just socially distancing — he’s quarantining over Christmas.

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