Anyone with a child terrified of that big fella in red knows what I’m talking about. You casually join the ridiculously long line of Santa-pic wannabes. You play it cool. You inch forward and calmly bat away questions about what’s actually at the end of the line anyway.

One hour later, with clammy hands and a quickening heartbeat, you’re nearly there. You can almost see that holiday pic taking pride of place on your mantelpiece. This is it – you can finally see Santa! You can see the camera flash lighting up his suburban-shopping-centre-turned-tacky-North Pole-backdrop. But here’s where things go awry – so can your little one. Better luck next year.

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The Santa photo is an age-old tradition.

As other parents gush over their beautiful pics and ummm and ahhh about whether Aunty Jane would like a personalised bookmark, key ring and mouse pad to go with her poster-size print, you’re busy either:

a) chasing after your screaming child;

b) frantically unwrapping a sugary bribe in the hope of sweet talking them into a pic;

c) warning them that if they don’t sit next to Santa and smile, they can kiss their Christmas presents goodbye; or, as has often been my experience;

d) finding yourself an equally unwilling participant as you sit awkwardly next to old St Nick and gently manoeuvre your terrified toddler into a forward-facing position while silently pleading with the 15-year-old “Elf-tographer” to stop staring and just press that damn shutter button NOW thank you very much.

The result – a drawer full of useless pics in which I reluctantly feature (why isn’t Photoshop offered to magically delete parents from such festive scenes?), a significant hit to the hip pocket and two children who can’t even watch The Polar Express without suffering from traumatic flashbacks. Is it worth it? No.

After seven years I have finally come to that conclusion and this Christmas will be our first Santa-pic-free one – unless hubby or I don a Santa suit and turn our digs into a makeshift wonderland, which is about as likely as Santa and his posse of reindeers actually making an appearance at our place – or anyone else’s – on Christmas Eve. (Sorry if I’ve just made your festive season a little less festive.)

Think your shopping centre Santa snap is going to look like this? Think again.

It’s no secret that this time of year makes us all a little nutty, but that seems particularly the case when it comes to Santa pics. Here we see normally vigilant parents throw away their diatribe on stranger danger as they happily thrust their littlies into the arms and laps of strangers who are so obviously wearing a disguise and offering them the very gifts and sweets you’ve warned them never to accept from someone they don’t know.

Oh, and of course we want them to smile throughout. Anyone say hypocrite?

A friend’s savvy seven-year-old daughter used her stranger-danger instincts to bypass a Santa pic last Christmas, declaring: “Mum, that Santa looks freaky.”

That said, there are no doubt plenty of “Santas” out there who are lovely old blokes just trying to pick up a few bucks post-retirement without any clue of the sheer terror that awaits them when a bunch of either petrified or – perhaps even worse – over-excited children pay them a visit in their Sunday best.

How hard is it to listen to your own children rattle off their Christmas “wants and needs,” let alone a shopping centre full of kids with their never-ending wish lists?

The truth is, unless your kids are among that rare breed of willing participants and you’ve somehow actually managed to find a Santa that looks like, well, Santa, there is only one thing Santa pics are good for – a huge belly laugh at the hilarious facial expressions of kids and Santas alike. Most of us have seen them, and Google’s full of them.

But when you start to accumulate your very own collection with your teary/ screaming/ shocked/ traumatised children in the starring role, you know it’s time to give up the dream and settle for yet another lop-sided pic of you and yours beside the family Christmas tree.

A supermum friend of four still perseveres each year. Her noble tips to prepare children for a Santa pic include “the ‘walk past’ method to get them acquainted with him (and) the ‘stand and watch’ method so to see what the other kids do”.

But my favourite advice comes from a friend’s enterprising five-year-old son who, when recently shown a vacant Santa chair and told the big man himself would soon be visiting to find out what “good” children want for Christmas, replied: “OK Mum, you sit on Santa’s knee and give him a message from me.”

A coveted Santa pic suddenly doesn’t seem so appealing when that big, black boot is on the other foot.