Is it already that time of year? Yes, yes it is. Our family’s favorite elf on the shelf is back from the de…attic…er…North Pole, yeah that’s it. We got him out  he arrived just in time, but as luck would have it, that damn elf didn’t seem to move this morning.

So what do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO? Of course like any responsible parent I panicked and moved him thinking that our daughters were still sleeping but one of them was already in the bedroom talking about how “Sprinkles” had not moved. Crap! I had to return him to the top of the tree. Of course daughter numero dos saw that he moved slightly. Or did he? I think I put enough doubt into her head that my cover was okay. Gotta love making your kids think they’re seeing things, dad of the year right herrrr.

Anyway, crisis averted, well for the most part. I had to jump on the old Google-ma-jig to research reasons why our elf didn’t move.

Some of the more memorable ones were that the kids took too long to go to sleep, that she was too tried to make it to Santa, that she was on strike, and my favorite, that it was too warm out and she lost her magic. This last one got a little crazy because then we were supposed to grab some tongs and put her in the freezer to charge her up again.

Madness.

I think we ended up deciding that it was a combination of the warm weather and everyone being up late in the house. You know, like no one ever sees Santa, we can’t see her move so she waited until the coast was clear, but it never was.

They’re six and seven, I don’t think they’re quite ready to crack the case of the stationary elf. Anyway, I’m not making the same mistake twice, Sprinkles has already picked some prime real estate tonight.

What a Lush

In any case if she ends up “not moving” for a few days we can chalk up to her being hungover.