::: A couple of reasons not to take your little children to the shopping mall to visit Santa. Scares a lot of them death. Take them out to lunch instead. ::: On second thought hire a babysitter, a good neighbour with children, a reliable teenager, anybody reliable, and leave the kids at home and get on with your business. Unless your children are extremely well behaved, shopping centres are no place to take little kids, and most specially babies. They get bored, tired, overheated, antsy, and suffer the same fate as adults do: sensory overload. "Gimme, gimme, gimme." Can you blame them when the adults can't even control themselves? Yes, yes, I know. Sometimes it's not possible, under some circumstances, to leave the children at home or in some other safe environment. Positively, never leave children in cars while dashing into some store for that last minute item somebody "forgot" to carefully plan for. Parenting is all about careful planning and organization. I still say, "leave the kids at home" - they'll be much happier and so will you and everybody else. :::