Meet "Fred Red." Unless you live under a rock, I'm sure you know about the "Elf on the Shelf." Let me tell you, I have a serious love/hate relationship with this thing. First off, not only do you have to remember to move him every single night, apparently now you have to come up with something fun/cute/creative to do with him. You know, toilet paper your tree, snow angels in the flour, bubble bath with marshmallows, etc etc! This damn elf has more fun than any felt filled with cotton thing should! I am not bagging on the mom's out there who are SUPER DUPER FUN (I'm secretly jealous of your creativity), I'm just saying it's too much work for me to do at the end of a long day. So I just move him around and on occasion I do leave the kids a note and maybe a little treat. (Hey I can't be that totally lame mom.)
So I have forgotten to move him TWICE! Not too bad considering how many times I ALMOST forgot to move him and jumped out of bed at 2am to do so. Well, last night was one of those nights. Jace says to me this morning that Fred Red didn't move. Now let me tell you about Jace. He is 8 and too smart for his own good. Common sense smart. I have had this feeling for a while that he is just still humoring me with all this "Believe" stuff. I don't quite remember what age I stopped believing but I know it was a gradual thing and I wasn't devastated once I decided once and for all that Santa wasn't real. I think Jace is almost there. It's kindof sad really. It makes me wonder if I haven't made it magical or fun enough for him to hang on and believe. I think JD and I have maybe one more solid year of his belief in Santa unless we do something totally amazing to restore his faith in all this. So anyways, I've totally steered from what I wanted to talk about. The elf. So we are heading to Cali today to meet up with JD who has been working all week, and go to Disneyland for a work conference. I forgot to move the elf and thought I'd be sneaky and take him out of his spot and then just put him in our car and hope that the kids behave on the drive there. Well, I stuffed him in one of my drawers until I could discreetly move him to the van. I told the kids that Fred Red wasn't in his spot anymore and they were all amazed. "Where is he?" I said I don't know, maybe back at the North Pole for a bit. Jace came into me and said, "Mom, I don't think Fred Red is real. I mean c'mon, he's cotton and has a plastic face." Hahaha, I asked him if he believed. He said he doesn't really believe in the elf but he still believes in Santa. Then I said the classic line of, "Well if you don't believe, you don't receive." You know what he said? "Mom Christmas isn't about RECEIVING anyways, it's about GIVING." You are so right buddy. I LOVE HIM! So I shut my bedroom door and let him in on the secret of the elf. He was pretty excited to get let in on the fun. He really wants to be in charge of moving him now. I will gladly let him! We proceeded to talk about Santa a little and what Christmas is really all about. Like I said, we need to come up with something good to keep his belief in Santa alive. So any suggestions are WELCOME!!
The funny part about this story is that after I had the talk with Jace, Avery comes into my room and was apparently looking for a pencil and wouldn't you know that little fart opened the damn drawer I put the elf in!!!! She screams, "Fred Red is in your drawer!" I gasp and look over. Seriously, this would happen to me. I saved it though, and just told her and Brody (who was now in the room) that he must have been so tired and is sleeping. I look over at Jace and he says to me that I totally blew it. I shushed him and shut the drawer. The kids were laughing quietly and thought it was SOOO funny that Fred Red was asleep in there. So at least THEY still believe, right?! Bad Mom. Dumb Elf. End of story.
P.S. Don't get me wrong, I don't despise our little Fred Red. It HAS been fun for me to hear the kids' excitement each morning as they try and find him. Oh and you bet I will still put him in our van and use him as leverage for the kids to be good on our road trip. There has to be some benefit to this little felt filled, plastic face, creepy elf!!
