Elf On The WhereverICanPutItUpHighSoTheKidsDon'tPlayWithItAndHopefullyIRememberToMoveItEveryNight

It's Christmas time again and that means that it's time to bring down the Christmas decorations that we have been collecting throughout the years and wonder how in the world have we accumulated so many decorations. At some point, there will be so many decorations in the attic that our roof will collapse. I can just see us trying to explain that to the insurance adjuster. Anyway, after the fifty to sixty boxes have made their way down from the rafters and are all piled on the floor, it's time to find that one decoration that needs to go up first and foremost and also needs to be replaced every single night / early morning and that is the Elf on the Shelf.

I'm not quite sure when the Elf on the Shelf became popular, but I know that it was not a thing when I was growing up. Since then it has become a necessity and a booming business at that. Our elf, which the kids insist is the same every year but I can never remember it's (sorry his) name from year to year is named Santa or Rudolph or Mike this year, depending on which kid you ask. I really need to write his name on his butt like the old action figures used to do to help the parents out. The elf usually shows up in December or after Thanksgiving, or really, whenever the children ask where their elf is.

Our elf usually shows up after Thanksgiving, but I forgot this year, so it showed up

on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We have a little jacket and I always put it on him when he first gets here, because he just came from the North Pole, and this year we

got a little face mask to put on him. We all talked about not spreading COVID to the elf or that might get Santa and the elves at the toy making factory sick and then there would be no Christmas for anybody and that would go right along with the rest of 2020. This has helped in keeping the kids away from Santa/Rudolph/Mike this year, even if we put him a little lower so the kids can reach him.

We try to do things fancy like on Pinterest or Instagram with the little scenes or place them in weird places, but most of the time we forget and place him wherever at the last minute at midnight before we go to sleep or early in the morning scrambling after we hear the kids moving around and hope that nobody sees me throw him at the Christmas tree and pray that he sticks to the top somewhere. One year, all of the kids got pink eye and we made his face all gunked up like the kids and told them that they

spread their gross little disease to our elf. Sometimes we place him eating candy or playing with their toys, but nothing very fancy.

Ryland is starting to get wise to all of this elf stuff though. Ryland is 7 this year and he thinks that the elf is in the attic all year and Santa sends us a letter every year and tells us to bring the elf out of the attic. He also doesn't think the tooth fairy is real either. Eleven months out of the year we teach our kids that elves and magic are not real and one month we tell them fanciful lies of Christmas magic, toy making elves, and flying reindeer insisting that they are true. A few years ago Ryland asked everyone in the family if Santa and Rudolph were real and everyone responded by saying, "What do you think?" and he got upset that everyone said the same thing and no-one would give him a straight answer. I'm afraid that we are unable to persist in our Christmas charade, but for now, they believe and

even if Ryland has his doubts, he promised that he won't tell the others.