We have a new Rudolph in the house. She's not the red-nosed reindeer, she's our Elf On The Shelf. I tried calling her Rudy for short, but Riley insisted that was not her name! So Rudolph landed in Great Grandma Lois' Christmas village last week with a small gift for each girl. Riley was very excited to see her since she had just been talking with her friend, Carter, who has an elf on the shelf at home. Riley knows that Rudolph flies away to visit Santa each night to let him know if she was a good little girl. Rudolph also will lose her magic to fly if Riley touches her. She struggled the first night with remembering not to touch her, but after an apology she has done just fine. I think our elf has a little adventurous side to her. So far we've seen her on the fireplace, bookshelf, inside Riley's stocking, sliding down the banister, on the stove making snow angels out of sugar, and hanging from a decorative Christmas tree with cereal garland. I'm not sure where she comes up with all of her fun ideas.
Rudolph, sitting so polite and innocently!
I also stole the idea of a fun Advent calendar made our of socks from my friend Ali. Last year she made a fun Advent calendar for her kids where she hung socks to count down the days until Christmas. I decided to hang ours from the lighted garland that we wrap around our banister. Riley thinks it is the neatest thing, second to Rudolph. I put a little piece of candy or a small trinket (mostly hair clippies and fun silverware) for Riley in each sock. Next year, Harper will get to join in on the fun. I thought I had a picture of it, but I guess not. I'll post one soon.
Our tree...it really has been a disappointment. You could hear Brett and I cussing about this tree several times in the past week. Really, it's been that bad. First off, the tree is much larger in our house than what it appeared to be when still in the ground. Second, we had to cut an entire garbage sack of branches off to even it out. Third, the tree farm definitely didn't shake our tree out because we swept up TONS of dead needles and pulled out an entire birds nest! Fourth, we had to go to the store twice for lights the first time we decorated (yes, first). Fifth, we had two brand new strands of lights die on us...one of which decided to die after we put up all of the ornaments! Sixth, the stand is huge and doesn't allow for a normal tree skirt to go around it so we have a nice pink sheet wrapped around the bottom. Lastly, with all of the branches cut off and pine needs that have fallen out we now have 25 gazillion holes in our tree. The lights on the bottom branches make them sag. I'm waiting for them to be on the ground when I get home tonight. Nonetheless, Riley loves her tree and Harper really doesn't care. Riley doesn't care that we have to decorate it twice. Just more fun for her. Plus, this tree has colored lights, where our fake tree has white lights! She's so excited for Christmas and that's really all that matters. Just saying, we may not continue this new tradition. We may revert back to our fake tree next year...
Second set of lights...before the ornaments.
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