'In high school it was really embarrassing, but now I think it's really funny.'

It took a few tries before McKenzie embraced the tradition, her mother explained to ABC.

'The first couple of years I took her to the different malls, she wouldn't have anything to do with him though. When she was three she finally went zooming up to him.'

But it could have all gone wrong when Santa left the mall to work at another store.

'We luckily ended up finding him by one of the photographers there,' Doig said. 'He gave us his phone number so we could contact him once a year.'

McKenzie, aged four in this photo, was shy about sitting on Santa's lap until she met this one at the age of three