Last week it started snowing. Big fat fluffy flakes that instantly melted as they hit the still warm ground. My children cheered and jumped and spun and screamed the entire way to the bus stop. They tried to catch each fuzzy round flake on their mittens and their tongues. I thought their snow excitement was cute until I realized that my kids equate snow with Christmas. Since that first fuzzy white flake came floating down I’ve been badgered constantly to decorate and put up the tree. Not happening.
Above and beyond that I have a four year old who insists that if there is any accumulation of snow that means the day will magically transform into Christmas Eve. I have tried to explain to her that snow does not necessarily mean Christmas and that Christmas does not necessarily mean snow. I have shown her a calendar and counted off the thirty-some days ’til Christmas. She will act like she’s getting it, nod, smile… and then the next day when we walk outside to find snow once again falling she starts bouncing and screaming “Maybe tonight is Christmas!!” Um. No.
Our tree is not up. I went to Frankenmuth and saw all the beautiful decorations, and bought a few, and my husband and I talked about putting the tree up. But then I came home and looked at the front room and remembered that we have even more big furniture bits stuffed into it then we did last year, and I have no clue how I am going to rearrange all this stuff to fit a tree in and who’s idea was it to get the kids a Lego table anyway? I’m pretty sure the answer involves moving some things to another floor of the house. I get tired out just thinking about it.
Then yesterday I found my seven year old tearing the place apart looking for The Elf. I clued in when I caught her moving furniture to check behind it. Apparently, someone in my daughter’s second grade class has been having daily elf visits since the day after Halloween. My girl came to the logical conclusion that the elf must be here somewhere, but we just haven’t noticed him yet. So when I walked in she was methodically taking our entire house apart piece by piece, like some sort of CSI crime scene gone wrong.
I would like to have a talk with the parent who thought it was a good idea to have their elf arrive on Nov.1st.
Like seriously. No. Just no.
There should be a law. Like a parenting law. One that rules that you are not allowed to go around teaching your child wacky things that will upset other kids.
You aren’t allowed to convince your child that Santa actually comes once a month, and then send them off to school to tell all the other kids that, leaving twenty-some kids wondering why he hasn’t visited them.
And you can’t tell them that the shelf elf comes on Nov. 1st. You just can’t. It’s against code. Come on. We’re in this together folks!
 |
Photo credit: peapodsquadmom This is not my elf. |
Our elf normally arrives around the same time we put the Advent Calendar out, which would be anywhere from December 1st to oh say around the 16th. Our elf isn’t particularly naughty. His speciality is hiding in places the children can’t reach; like say perched in the dining room light fixture, or safely locked inside a glass fronted bookcase. There are only so many high up places he can go, so he’s hard pressed to find a couple weeks worth of non-repeating spots to appear in. Fourteen, or Twenty-some, day of visits is about all the elf I can handle. When he leaves I breathe a sigh of relief.
As I am writing this it is snowing. Our first heavy serious snowfall, blanketing everything in white. I’m looking out the window at it and thinking I’m going to need to get the darn snow shovel out. My daughter, who is in the front room playing quietly with play dough, starts screaming, “Mom! Mom! It’s snowing!” I tell her I noticed and that Mommy was just looking out the window at the snow too. Bouncing down the hallway at top velocity she shouts out, “It might be Christmas tonight that means!! Right??” Um. No. Still no.
I am not ready to have it be Christmas yet. Like seriously, can’t we wait until December to start this thing? I reserve the right to be a humbug until Dec.1st, at the very least.
Stupid snow.
Stupid shelf elves.
Bah.
Humbug.
Leave a Reply