Santa or no Santa?

So Chad had no interest in going to the mall with me to stand in a ridiculously long line just to have Lily's picture taken with Santa, and I had no intentions of going by myself, but being the corny new mom that I am, I kind of really wanted it done.  So, I happily obliged when my friend text me last minute to see if I would like to join her and her daughter to brave the madness of the whole Santa ordeal.  Surprisingly, the line wasn't too terribly long.  My friends little girl, age 2, decided she was going to have nothing to do with Santa as we got closer to him; bless her little heart...  Lily did just fine, and it was a quick and painless experience. Thankfully, she's slightly too young to actually realize what's going on so I'm sure we have numerous years ahead of her being terrified of Santa with end results of waiting in a long line to either get no picture or a screaming  picture(which can actually make for a rather amusing picture..) That is of course if we decide to even do the whole Santa thing.  Chad and I have had the Santa talk, but still haven't come to a decision. I don't like the idea of "lying" to my child, but I have such fond memories of  believing in Santa growing up. I will say, I was quite mad at my parents for lying to me when I found out, but I got over it.... I mean, part of me doesn't see the harm in pretending there's a Santa as long as it doesn't take away from the real meaning of Christmas, but another part of me doesn't even want to go there. I also worry about my kids ruining it for other kids, and getting hate calls from other parents about how my child ruined their Christmas. Yes, I'm speaking from experience. In my anger of finding out there really was no Santa, I decided to announce it at school the next day and break my little friends heart.   Oh well, thankfully we have a little time to decide.  Either way... Lily now has a picture taken with Santa to document her first Christmas, and a rather authentic Santa I might add.