Photo elf, Crowd Control

It was a busy, busy Saturday. The third weekend of the holiday season is always a little crazy, and the line was past stroller alley by 9:30am. Shortcake was sent to Photo, and managed to fit a family of 11 into a picture. There was another group of 22, but they only wanted the 11 teenage girls in the photo, thank goodness. Luckily, Shortcake had an awesome Santa elf, Bobble, who totally rocked and supported Shortcake.

Shortcake was assigned to Gatekeeper for about 5 minutes before she was reassigned to a spot just past Crossroads, with a radio, and urging people down a hallway (where she spent the rest of the day). If you were entering the hallway, she told you about the pictures on the wall of the parade over the last 80 years (Which really are interesting. There are pictures of Times Square from the '30s.) If you were exiting the hallway, she urged you forward. The emergency exit door was accidentally opened 3 times in a row when Shortcake first got there. Each time, security had to be called to turn it off. Shortcake asked everyone to cover their ears until it could be turned off, in order to protect hearing. Some patrons were very cranky and not very cooperative, understandably so, since they had been in line for an hour (or more - twice during the day the line was out of stroller alley, into women's coats, all the way to the fitting rooms, which means a line of 2 1/2 hours), and still had an hour to go. Shortcake tried to keep spirits up by singing Dory's "Just keep swimming" song, and "The ants go marching 2 by 2" along with telling people to play games like "Find the name of every elf you meet and remember it" or "Guess the date the picture on the wall was taken."

There was a family that had an autistic child who braved the line. If only Shortcake had known the child was autistic, she would have called a manager. She didn't realize it until the family had been in line for an hour, and the child literally lay down on the concrete floor to deal with the stress of the line.

It was still so busy at the end of the day that the line was 2 hours, and Shortcake would gladly have stayed longer, if she could have, to help out, but alack, alas. Shortcake had other obligations.

The elves had a Christmas party later that night. It involved many sugary treats, ice cream, an impromptu dance party, and lots of Santa jokes.