Pictures with Santa Packages, from Best to Cheapest

Most Exclusive Packages

• Your child will ride to Santa on one of the polar bears that we've bred over the last 30 years to be docile and tame. Our elves feed you and your family rare chocolates, while praising you for fictional good deeds you did this year. Along a path covered in our specially formulated “indoor snow” that doesn't melt, championship figure skaters then lift your child above their heads and bring them to Santa, here played by actor Brian Cox. You can request either a jolly Mr. Cox, or if you are raising your child to be psychologically crushed by your family's wealth and status, he can act closer to his Succession character and be withholding and megalomaniacal. You will receive a rendering of the entire experience as a hologram (hence the required motion capture suits).
• This Santa crawls on his hands and knees to retrieve whatever presents your child asks for. He answers both to “Santa” and “Scum.” You'll love our real reindeer, who are fed expensive human food in front of Santa, who must eat deer pellets from the ground. The person playing this Santa is in some kind of Christmas predicament that has forced him to take the job (e.g., court-ordered to perform 100 hours as Santa to get custody of his kid). Also, this Santa is under the impression that your child is a sick orphan, because that's what we told him, so he'll accept any treatment without question. Santa's presence in the picture is optional.
• Our most authentic Santa! This Santa is cloned from DNA from the original St. Nicholas, was raised in captivity in our North Pole mock-up, and is scared to be alive. Please prepare your child with lessons in ancient Turkish so they can tell Santa what they want in his native language. Gifts given by this Santa will be handmade by him and accurate to his time, such as wooden boxes with wood in them, splinter-dolls, timber clacking sticks, and dried playing-hooves. He is afraid of cameras, so you must wait for him to fall asleep before getting photos.
• Rather than Santa, your child will meet with Thomas Critten, the Christmas figure only rich families know about. Instead of good and bad behavior, Mr. Critten gives presents based on value to society and his own undisclosed beliefs of genetic worth. Your child must report a wishlist totaling no less than $10,000, half of which must be intentionally frivolous. With your pictures, your child will receive a copy of Mr. Critten's book The Success Metric.

Affordable Santa Packages

• Your Santa will be happy to see you and will ask your child's name no more than once. Unlike most of the cheaper Santa options, this Santa will be wearing footwear, but not necessarily boots. No big belt buckle, which isn't necessarily wrong but does register an incompleteness about his outfit that you can't put your finger on. The display over-relies on candy canes and peppermint imagery. Your child's picture will only be taken with no lighting, or when they are crying. No siblings: you must choose.
• In this scenario, Santa is second fiddle to Jack Frost. You still see Santa, sit on his lap, and tell him what you want for Christmas. But in all interactions, Santa stresses that he's dogshit compared to his pal Jack Frost, implying that Jack is the real signature being of the Christmas holiday. This gives your child the impression that they are not meeting anyone special, and in fact are missing out on visiting a better Christmas figure.
• Santa is played by a 24-year-old. The suit is too big and he doesn't use an old man voice. While kids tell him their Christmas list, he's on his phone keeping track of online sports bets. Loud conversations among families about how “that's one of Santa's newer helpers” abound. This Santa is assisted by two elf helpers, one of whom is played by an older man with a white beard who is still not sure why we don't just ask him to do Santa, and it costs extra to get your picture with him.

Cheapest Santa Packages

• Our cheapest option: Santa stands in a window display that you and your child can walk by and look at. He is played by two people who take turns. They share a beard, so your child will see Santa take off his beard and give it to another person, completely ruining any illusion that Santa is real. You must take your own picture.
• Santa will make a Zoom call that's projected onto the parking garage. Judging from his background, he's Zooming in from either a zoo or a prison. He is on a 15-second delay so we can catch and bleep the swear words he is likely to utter (the delay is an exceptionally long 15 seconds because this Santa is very good at using newer offensive words and phrasing, so we need enough time to Google anything that sounds suspiciously offensive). We actually pay you $15 for this option because technically it is a social science experiment run by Columbia University.
• A first draft of our St. Nicholas clone that we didn't use will place a special Christmas curse on your child. He's missing a stomach from the botched cloning procedure, so has trouble keeping food down. Other than that, standard Santa fare and photos.
• Brian Cox again, but the whole time he's recording voiceovers for those McDonald's commercials he does. Mr. Cox will email you the photos next year.