So.. firstly let me start by saying I love Christmas, it's my favourite time of year, I love the cold, the chunky boots and the cosy knits, the shopping, but whoever thought the elf was a good family tradition is pushing me over the edge! And...to really top it, in my wisdom I decided to invite 2 damn elves into our lives (at that time we only had 2 kids and it seemed politically correct to have a boy and a girl elf!!!) Clearly I must lose my mind for a few hours a year for this to have seemed like a good idea... Every year, every night in December just as we're dozing off after having done another Netflix marathon until midnight, one of us jumps up, (usually me) runs downstairs whispering loudly... "the elves... we forgot the elves again!!!" loud enough to waken the other half but not so loud to wake the kids..(It's a fine line in our house) The other half promplty jumps up to help, NOT!!
Inevitably then I spend the next half hour messing my house with hilarious pranks in the hope I can sufficiently amuse my children and in the morning I blame 2 miniature people with pointy ears and who cannot walk or talk who come from the North Pole and proceed to put them on the naughty step for the mess they created!
So, this year, around July, Ella found our elves hiding, despite them leaving Christmas Eve for The north Pole.. they still managed to turn up in my scarf drawer... weird huh! She was happy to hear they had just arrived to see how the kids were behaving before reporting back to The north Pole... problem is, they didn't make it back to The North Pole and therefore they haven't yet arrived at our house, despite 3 days of frantic searching...they have disappeared. Seriously, I know I put them somewhere safe but not for the life of me can I remember where, and with the kids asking every day when the elves are arriving I'm pondering my plan of action. Do I ignore them hoping the elves will drift from memory or am I crazy enough to adopt another elf, (just 1 this time) with his absenteeism being put down to norovirus this year. It's a quandary I can't answer, it's a toss up between my loss of sanity at forgetting their naughtiness every night, or the guilt of disappointing my kids out of my own selfishness??
I say I don't know the answer... of course I'm not going to disappoint my kids, the elf will arrive in a show of crazy flamboyancy that I can't keep up for the next 20 days and every morning will be a disappointment anyway... where's my purse???