My son started demanding to see Santa on Sunday morning. But Monday evening, when I had failed to get his hair cut and take him to see the Man in Red, he was in full-scale panic.

"Mommy! We have to goooooo."

I promised that we would go Tuesday, for sure, so help me God. I picked him up from school, and drove straight to the hair salon. It was one of those walk-in ten dollars and ten minutes places. He followed the stylist to her station, and leaped up in the chair, legs jiggling.

"I want it long on the top," he offered, and then sat statue-still as the stylist transformed him from shaggy urchin to cute child once again. She put a little gel in his hair, and he spent the time waiting for me to pay forming his hair into a sharp spike down the center of his forehead. "Roar!" he said. "I'm a raptor!"

We walked to the car, and as I buckled him in, he shouted "Watch the 'do!"

I didn't even laugh. I'm so good.

Driving home, he insisted "all these bumps and turns are gonna ruin my style!" My youngest looked over at him and yanked her thumb out of her mouth. "Oooh, you are soooo stylish!"

We fetched my oldest, and went home to put the finishing touches on his Santa collage. Then we waited. And waited. And waited for Daddy to get home, so we could get on with the main event.

Normally, a trip to the mall during the witching hour is akin to a trip to Hell. There must be high-frequency noises in the stores that pain small children, and drive them to spin and scream and fling their bodies to the floor. As we loaded the excited kids into the van, we pleaded with them. "You guys have to hold it together. No tantrums. We aren't buying anything, and we are going to try to get dinner after we see Santa, so please please please please PLEASE don't go sideways on us."

Get ready for this:

THE KIDS WERE GOOD! THE WHOLE TIME! I'M A FANTASTIC MOTHER!!!!

Or maybe they were just terrified that Santa would see them in their usual screams of devastation and pretend death-throws. Whatever.

We arrived at Santa's sleigh and there was no line. NO LINE! And no people behind us either! My son bolted up to him, and unfurled the list of all lists. We hung back a bit, and let the boy 'splain about how this one here is the T-Rex Mountain and that one there is the Dino Explorers and right here is the Robo-Raptor. Santa scratched his beard and said "Well, son, I hope you get some of those toys."

Then Santa shot me a look like "good luck with that, lady."

We brought the girls over, but my oldest refused to name a preferred gift, and my youngest spotted the candy canes, and that was way more interesting than the guy with the beard. We took a photo in one shot, and politely exited the scene. Right behind us, Santa took a flailing elbow to the chin from a hysterical three year old who wanted to get the heck away from the sleigh. Coulda been mine, man. Coulda been mine. But it wasn't. (Wooo!)

We decided to try dinner. Success! We ate dinner! At a restaurant! And they were still good! As a reward, we decided to do some window shopping at the toy store.

This is where the tale should get ugly. But NO! We checked everything out, and then we made our way home and it was totally fine and we all had fun and...

Who are these children? Where were my children? Did they hire good-behaving stand-ins for seeing Santa? I have to admit, that was a brilliant strategy, but a little unnerving for me.

By the next morning, they were back to their smart-alecky selves. My son announced that he could spell CD. And also DVD. My husband said "Do you know that DVD stands for something? Digital Video Disc. Or Digital Versatile Disc..."

My son rolled his eyes up into his head and said "Or Digital I don't care whatever Disc."

Like the bad mother I am, I spit my coffee out laughing, and had to change my shirt before I took them to school.