This week, faced with a last-minute shopping emergency, I took the kids to the mall, a place that, this time of year, I try very hard to avoid. After we made our purchase, I was dodging crowds of holiday shoppers with my brood in tow when they spotted him.

Santa Claus.

I’m not sure if I should be proud or ashamed of this fact, but my kids have never sat on Santa’s lap. Belief in Mr. Claus has always been a much more abstract concept in our home.

At least one gift for each child comes directly from The Fat Man himself, evidenced by different wrapping paper and “LOVE, SANTA” scrawled in block printing on the tag.

His milk gets drunk, his cookies get eaten, we read “The Night Before Christmas” and make the usual comments about how we think we hear Santa’s sleigh coming. Yada, yada, yada.

But I’ve never felt the need to cap the Santa experience by taking my kids to the mall, waiting in line to plop one of them on an actor’s lap, and then paying $9 for a crappy souvenir photo. After all, by the time most kids are 5 or 6 they’ve figured out that the real Santa is busy overseeing his midget labor force in December, not going mall to mall asking kids what they want for Christmas. As if he really needs to be told. He is MAGICAL, after all.

What intrigued me, though, was that it was my oldest kids - who by their own admission are no longer believers - who seemed the most interested in a visit with Saint Nick. “Look, Mom, it’s Santa!” Jacob said. “We - I mean William and Owen - should really go tell them what we - I mean they - want for Christmas, don’t you think?”

There’s a big part of me that was heartbroken when my oldest decided he was no longer a believer, and I wanted to indulge the little-kid side of him. Besides, what could it hurt? So the five of us headed over to Santa’s Magical Parent Trap and got in line.

But everything seemed to fall apart once it was our turn. The big boys, who had just a few minutes before seemed excited by the prospect of getting up close and personal with Santa, decided to assume a cool, aloof stance once we got there and refused to come inside the gates at all. Owen took one look at “Santa’s” gray beard - or perhaps it was the belly that jiggled like a bowl full of jelly - and refused to go anywhere near him. “No, mom, no, mom, no!” he cried, clinging to my neck as though I was trying to turn him over to an orphanage. Pointing at Santa, he tearfully declared him “‘TUPID!”

I held out hope for William. After all, at just-turned-4, Will’s at prime believer age. To him, there’s nothing at all strange about the idea that Santa could be at thousands of malls at the same time, just like there’s nothing strange about the idea that an overweight man who likes to hang around with elves squeezes down millions of chimneys in one night.

But even William wasn’t going for it. He refused to make eye contact with Santa, instead creeping up to him sideways looking down at the floor. When Santa patted his lap and invited Will to jump on up, Will looked at me with alarm and said, “Do I have to?”

“No … but don’t you want to tell Santa what you want for Christmas?” I asked.

“Can you just tell him for me?” he asked, making a hasty retreat.

“He wants a guitar,” I said to Santa, as William backed away, his eyes on the floor.

Santa nodded.

“He’s shy,” I explained, as William hid behind his brothers and Owen let out a fresh shriek. Santa just stared. Really embarrassed now, I turned and fled.

“You want a picture?” the helper “elf” called after me.

But it was too late. The five of us holiday misfits were already hurrying toward the mall exit.

Before we left, though, we spent the nine bucks we’d saved on a round of Aunt Annie’s pretzels.