Boy’s Photo With Santa Goes Viral for Comical Reason

One child’s old photo with Santa Claus has gone viral thanks to a hilarious reason that most people might miss.

Kerry Spencer posted the photo of her son Samuel sitting with a Jolly Old St. Nick. He looks a little uncomfortable, as he looks away from Santa. He’s also making the sign for “Help”!

“We taught our baby sign language. This is the sign for ‘help.’ You’re welcome,” Spencer wrote.

Her original tweet has over 6,480 retweets and over 25,100 likes.

After the post went viral, other parents asked Spencer about her son’s sign, noting that it’s not exactly the ASL sign for “help.”

“It’s ASL baby sign; like with spoken language certain words are ‘mispronounced’ by babies learning them,” she wrote to own Twitter user.

“As someone on Facebook just said: Babies trying to say ‘fork’ sometimes say ‘f—,’” Spencer explained to another. “His thumb is the wrong direction. But it’s close enough I knew exactly what he was signing.”

“That picture is one of my most favorite things. It was an accident, and it was so funny,” Spencer told Babble. She explained that she taught Samuel and her other children American Sign Language because young children can learn to sign before they learn to speak.

The photo was taken when Samuel was a year old. He’s now 13. She said she only recently realized that Samuel was signing “help” in the photos with Santa he took that day.

“It was the first time we were supposed to try to go see Santa,” Spencer told Babble. “He did not like Santa.”

Photo credit: Twitter/ @Swilua