Scotty Scout

Last year, after moving in, the holiday season began.  When the Christmas holiday portion started to roll around, Allison came home talking about this "elf" that everyone had in their house and wanted to know why in the world we didn't have one, too.

Now, I thought that this was a pretty good question.  I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.  We hadn't had any friends from anywhere (anywhere we lived, nor anywhere they'd lived) that had talked about it, either.  So, this year's Christmas holiday started to roll around and I started to do some investigating.  It didn't take long.  I could find them everywhere and all of a sudden so many of our friends in so many different places were "getting" them, too.

This "elf" is really a "Elf on the Shelf."  He "arrived" at our house on November 30, just in time to kick December off.  He has his own book (only published in 2005, so don't feel "behind in the times" yourself).  This book talks about where he came from (the North Pole), what he does (watches and reports to Santa and appears in a different spot every morning), what you shouldn't do with him (touch him...clever people!), etc., all in a cute little rhyme.

Some of our friends are "thrilled" to have to "remember" one more thing to do...while I don't disagree, I am thankful for a little extra help keeping the kids good.

Each of the three older kids had a different name (this is what you are supposed to do when you get him) they wanted to name him.  They decided that that worked perfectly for a first, middle, and last name.  It was a bit long and jumbled, something you couldn't remember all the way to the next year, nor cared to.  It was something like "Sneaky Elfy something-something-y", so I intervened and told them that I didn't think it was fair that they should each get to name him and then McKenna had to grow up calling him that (funny how parenting can work to your advantage some days).  I told them that they had to compromise on something.  After a quick trial-run of a couple names, they all agreed that they liked "Scotty Scout."

After all of the "ta-do" he has been found sitting on top of the CDs, the chandelier, the doorway, inside the holiday stairwell garland, etc.  Once he only moved about six inches...the kids were promptly told that they must have had a few problems in that room the day before.  We'll see how this goes, but for now (okay, and always) Scotty Scout has joined our family as another Christmas tradition.