I think it was...marker? But he did not come home with any green crafts from school, and of all the things he has gotten into at home, nothing was that color. Odd. Maybe Pete put it there, kind of like how Elsa gave Anna that streak in Frozen when they were little. While I am on Pete...please meet him:
Pete is our elf. A lot of parents with kids of Santa-believing age are familiar with the much-loved holiday tradition Elf on the Shelf. Basically, you buy the kit that contains an elf and a book to be read to your child(ren). The book explains that Santa sends down little scout elves sometime after Thanksgiving to watch whether you are being good or bad. Every night until Christmas, he goes up to the North Pole to report back and then in the morning, he is resting in a different place back in the house. He is always watching! The elf is not a toy and could lose his magic if you touch him, so be careful. He is also under strict orders from Santa not to talk to you. But if he sees that you are being good, you will get lots of presents when Christmas comes.
Now, you have to name your elf, and for a reason only Santa himself knows, Ashton said, "Pete" when I asked him what he should be called. You know, now that I think about it, Ashton might have said, "Pee". The potty humor is alive and thriving in our house and lately poop and pee are his favorite words. He thinks it is positively hysterical to run around saying "Poo poo in your face!" or "Eat this! A poo-poo sandwich with pee juice!!" and laugh and laugh.
Anyway, it might have been selective hearing but we are calling him Pete. I have to make sure to move him every night because it is the first thing Ashton mentions when his eyes pop open in the morning. It's a game to find his new spot.
Parents of older kids really have a problem with these elves (usually "damn elves" in that circle) because their kids aren't just content to find their elf in a new location each morning. They want notes! They want mischief! They want humor and creativity! Right now it's enough that Ashton just plays hide and seek, but I thought I would share what some of these elves get themselves into (as found across the interwebs). Some are innocent, some not so much.
It gets even more depraved out there than that last one, trust me.
So that's the story about the damn elves on the shelves. As for us, we are getting a lot of mileage out of Pete. As in "Ashton, stop that! Pete's watching!" or "Don't you want to go poop on the potty so Pete can tell Santa??" The answer is usually no but at least it gives me a new angle to try.
Anyway, let's do the title of this post some justice.
What Christmas looks like so far this year
(1) When it comes to crafts and decorations, I'm trying not to phone it in but it's very difficult when your kid wants to make a snowman, for example, but there is no snow outside. So we used old, mostly dried out marshmallows.
The face is frosting that I painstakingly extracted from Ashton's christmas wreath donut and re-pasted into eyes and a mouth, and the pretzel sticks were his snack at the time. Boom! Snowman.
(1) (a) Do you see the chips in the finish on my coffee table in that picture? Boys, that's who.
(2) I had these really cute figurines with legs that dangled over the side of the counter or the mantel or wherever you put them.
Not anymore. If we had a dog I'm pretty sure Ashton would have blamed it, but the fact is, he yanked their legs off and hid one of them so I can't even make poor Santa whole again.
(3) The other night we were all set to make sugar cookies. We mixed up egg-free dough, rolled it out and then I went to find my christmas cookie cutters. They were nowhere (did Pete take them? Revenge of the elves? Hmmm). So we made bunnies and hearts instead. Everyone likes a good christmas bunny.
We never even frosted them. Ashton seemed to like them sans-decorations so why would I go to all that extra sticky trouble? Exactly.
(4) The boys and I are already stir-crazy in the house and it's only December. We've been making the best of it:
(4) (a) Because I have less than zero minutes to physically go shop, I order. The boxes have been piling up and bonus! Double as Alex's climbing wall.
(4) (c) We make "christmas trees" out of magnatiles.
So it's not pretty.
(5) Neither is our house.
Womp womp. Last year we had wreaths and icicle lights all over! Garlands! I 100% own that I'm the reason there's only a small string of lights around our porch pole. I couldn't decide how to decorate and now it's too late. Uh, I take that back. I wanted our front tree to look like this.
But I guess Jason said that would be too much work.
At this point, the only thing that would complete my list would be both boys hysterically crying on Santa's lap. I don't have that picture because we haven't visited him.
There have been two rays of sunshine: first, early Christmas presents from Uncle Bob (of course, Ashton likes Alex's and Alex likes Ashton's) and second, Ashton's newfound Christmas love. He climbs into Alex's crib in the morning and gives him hugs before bounding off in search of Pete. This is very cute as long as Alex is already awake ;)
Overall, it's not a perfect Christmas season so far but then, it doesn't have to be. Ashton is super excited for Santa and his school concert is today. I will be sure and post video footage of what is sure to be an incredibly off-key performance. Christmas cards are out, the tree is twinkling, and Jason and I have spent a couple of nights watching our favorite movies of the season. Life is good :)
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