Here's a question: have you ever heard of the
Elf on the Shelf? Yeah, me neither... at least not before about five weeks ago.
In late November I was chatting with some friends on Facebook about Christmas traditions and one women mentioned this elf thing and being curious I googled it and low and behold this thing is
everywhere. I had never heard of it before and now I see, hear, and spot these little elves all over the place. It's very, very
Shrodinger - maybe we should have named the elf Shr odinger. Or cat. Cat would have been a nice name too.
I'm nursing the end of a terrible cold and it's getting late so I'll cut to the chase. The kids get to name the elf, and I love, love, love the name that Turbo came up with for this little lady: Lipsie. When I told Turbo that it was our job to name our elf, he didn't hesitate. It was like, it
was her name, not that he
gave the name to her. I'm famous amongst my friends for naming things, so it fills my heart with pride that the apple didn't fall far from this tree. :)
It is the job of the parents to move Lipsie into a new location each evening, or at least before the kids get up (more on that later) - under the guise that the elf flies back to Santa each night to report on the good and bad choices made by our children. If she can fly, it would, of course, make complete sense that she would settle her little elf butt in a new place each night. Let me just note here that moving the elf has not been an easy task to track.
It's December and we're busy and there have been mornings when I mutter obscenities under my breath and stumble downstairs just ahead of my kids to move the elf. Thank goodness no tiny Lego pieces have been in my path or the obscenities would have been loud enough for all to hear, including my kids, and including Lipsie, who undoubtedly would have made a special day-time flight up to the North Pole to tattle on this new member of the Naughty List. But, so far so good, and I have my husband to thank for that.
In fact, my husband is way, waaaay into this. I have come downstairs some mornings and can't find the darn elf and wonder if she fell to the floor in the middle of the night and as my blurry morning brain takes in the room, my eagle-eyed son shrieks, "There's Lipsie! I see her!" as he points to some new location that I clearly couldn't reach, being five-foot-two-ish... or maybe she
can fly!
So to give you an idea of the creative locales, here is a comparison. I hope to post more photos of all the locations, but here, at least, is a starter set:
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| Lipsie, day one: mom places her atop stereo. Rather dull, really. |
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| Lipsie, day 20: dad has her riding Bullseye (only because she wouldn't fit on a giant dinosaur, but I bet he gets the dinosaur to work tomorrow night) |
I told Turbo the other night that Lipsie will go to live with Santa at the North Pole again on Christmas Eve and that we won't see her again for awhile. He was visibly upset. Good thing Santa is bringing him a Spider-Man action figure. That'll push the memories of a little girl elf to the very bottom of his 'things to worry about' shelf.
Merry (almost) Christmas!
