It’s that time of year when our family gets all the Santa photos. We love visiting different Santa’s throughout SoCal. This weekend we headed over to the Lakewood Mall to HGTV’s Santa HQ to check out their great Santa set-up. Last year we went to HGTV’s Santa HQ at the Los Cerritos Mall (you can read about it here) and loved it so much that we wanted to check out the one at the Lakewood Center Mall.
HGTV’s Santa HQ adds a whole new dimension to the traditional family Santa Claus visit by guiding visitors through an immersive, interactive holiday extravaganza that uses of state-of- the-art digital technology. something that kids today love! There are 15 Santa’s HQ in the United States. I already mentioned the two in Southern California, the Los Cerritos Mall and the Lakewood Center Mall. They are basically the same, but the Lakewood locations set-up is a bit bigger and has an extra room.
we started off our visit with a greeting from some of Santa’s elves. they we so sweet and spent extra time playing with the kids. they took them through the Naughty or Nice Meter to see if the boys had been naughty or nice this year. of course they made Santa’s nice list….and even saw their names on Santa’s interactive Christmas list. Are you on Santa’s nice list? My boys only made it to the yellow zone…I wonder what that means?
Next we headed into Santa’s Observatory and got to visit the Elf Academy. It’s a fun photo opp where you can elf yourself.
The is also Santa’s Studio where you can create an elf I.D. card digitally.
In the next room kids can check out the control panel. what kid doesn’t love buttons and gadgets to play with.
We got to have Elf-Ray Vision! Either by downloading the Elf-Ray Vison app on your phone, or using the iPads located on the wall of the observatory, kids can explore Santa’s Observatory by using the app as special goggles. they got to see secret elf happenings on the walls like presents being shipped and the working gears of the observatory.
Finally, we met the big guy himself….SANTA!!!! we had so much fun getting our photos with Santa. he spent one-on-one time with the boys, and made sure to get a good variety of photos that i could choose from. i loved that he took time to speak to each child individually. also, we got to skip the line because we made a reservation. pretty cool huh! guests can now spend less time waiting in line by making reservation online at Santa HQ from HGTV. you can even pre-pay for your photo package, days or even weeks in advance. you can also opt-in text functionality to send reminders about your Santa photo session reservation.
Here’s how our Santa photo turned out. This is the closest that Dani has gotten to Santa without crying. She just woke up, so I would say it was a success.
Santa gave each kids a coloring book, and when we bought our Santa photo package, they gave us free Panettone…how cool.
The kids and i had such a nice evening at Santa HQ from HGTV. i wasn’t expecting our Santa visit to be so special, but with all these special holiday touches and the elves treating my children with love and care, my kids had night to remember. we will be adding HGTV’s Santa HQ to our holiday traditions each year!
In case you wanted to know just a little more about Santa HQ from HGTV…check out this fun video!
