As November comes to an end and everything begins to sparkle and shimmer, life becomes a little more hectic and a lot lovelier, and our friend Tiny Tim (insert your elf’s name here) returns. Children all over go to bed on Thanksgiving night, ready for the Christmas festivities to begin.They know when they wake up the following morning that their month of fun elf antics will officially start their ever so exciting countdown to Christmas. While all those children are going to bed with thoughts of fun and wonder, their parents are going to bed with dread. I know because as I sit here late on Thanksgiving night writing this story I am trying to think in my head how my adorable little elf will make his grand entrance tomorrow morning.

I know some of us jumped on the elf train because it was a cute tradition. Others were guilted into it because their kindergartner wanted to know why everyone else had an elf at home. It no longer matters how we got here, we are here and in it for the long haul. I remember the first year we had our elf it was so funny to have him take part in crazy shenanigans all month.Then the following year it got a bit harder to dream of new exciting things Tiny Tim would do. Now by mid-December I will probably forget to move the elf at least five times and blame on them going to bed to late or some mysterious elf flu I heard about on the internet because a lot of elves forgot to move. Thank goodness, our elf is not the only elf that is sometimes lazy and forgets to move.

Somewhere along the way we decided being a super awesome ninja on Christmas Eve just was not enough. We thought hey maybe if we practice our ninja skills all month long we could reach our full potential. We thought it would be great to plan a month long of funny fabulous elf ideas for every single night between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We are now at the point where Pinterest and all its greatness no longer helps because we have done it, seen it, or heard about all out it 1,000 times.

I know one day they will be older and I will not be required to bring all the Christmas magic that their world can hold. I know the little elf will be packed in the attic and I will look at it and remember how much laughter he brought into their lives when they believed a little toy could fly to the North Pole every night. I know all these things. I also know that when they have children they will curse that little elf many nights and wake up in the middle of the night and think great I need to move the elf. They will wake up super early to make sure the elf did not fall and the plan was still in position, because they will know what I know. That even though Tiny Tim in his red onesie and little red rocking chair drives me crazy, I will do it every day this month until Christmas Eve, because the laughter and joy he brings every morning is worth it. By Christmas Eve I’m pretty sure we will all graduate from ninja academy, and on Christmas morning while basking in pure happiness and a whole lot of magic we will sit there and kind of (and I seriously mean a pinch) miss our little elf friend.