My Own Christmas Miracle

Meet "Snitch." He was our Elf - sent by Santa himself to watch all the kids at our house this year. He arrived only about 7 days before Christmas while other people who had elves who arrived right after Thanksgiving.

He came to be because my little T-Tyler-Texas said that his friend had an elf and so did his preschool teacher and why didn't we have one - did Santa not like us? Oh, that broke my heart, so while my sister, The Queen, was here we went on a quest to find an elf that could be at our house (my children obviously don't know this- because Snitch just showed up one morning). Anyway, no store had this novelty "Elf on the Shelf" complete with an Elf and a story to accompany him. So we started asking store associates if they had Elf figures that were just in their Christmas sections....we had one man telling all of his associates Tyler's story and making sure we had exhausted all possibilities of finding an elf (including gnomes in the garden section). It really is a heart tugging story - this particular associate as we left the store was saying to his co-workers "...and now this little boy thinks that Santa doesn't like him because he hasn't sent an elf..."

On our way out of the second or third store that mom, queen, and I were at late one night - we came upon those "claw" vending machines where you can win stuffed animals. It had an ELF!!!! It was $0.50/try. So we tried 3 times (Queen was the nominated athlete for the task)....after the third time we hadn't one - so we decided to try one last time spending a total of $2....and SHE GOT IT! We were like giddy high school teenagers in the lobby of Shopko jumping up and down because we were so happy we had gotten an elf out of the vending machine!!!!

On the way home- we composed a "greeting poem" from Snitch to my kids - he came from the north pole sent by Santa to make sure they behaved well before Christmas - every night he would fly back to the North Pole to tell Santa if they were good and the next day he would be in a different place (if you choose to do this - keep in mind that if you forget to move the elf, your kids will notice - I mean I NEVER did *wink* *wink* but I was pretty good. So every day for the rest of the time before Christmas Snitch would be in a different spot every day - and the only rule was that the kids couldn't touch him or his magic would go away.

Dallin had a hayday with his teasing poor sweet Annabelle that Snitch would tell "ho ho" that she couldn't have presents...he had her in tears a few times.....

All in all it was our own little Chirstmas miracle that we found an elf at all! It was meant to be!!! It was so fun to listen as the kids got up every morning and first thing tried to find where Snitch was.....(btw - you get to name your own elf).