Whew. Ella still believes in Santa and the Elf on the Shelf. Or at least she is exercising her wonderfully active imagination to keep them alive. Whatever the case may be, magic has not yet left our house.
In my last post I was lamenting the fact that my kids were growing up. I was starting to panic about the sudden realization that my baby is less than a year away from double digits. My first baby will become a teenager in about six months. For some reason, these thoughts brought me way, way down for an entire day.
Later that evening I pulled the elf out of his year-long hiding place in my closet. I sighed as I looked at his annoyingly cheerful face and thought, what the hell - might as well put him out there. At least the kids will get a good laugh. I tucked him in the embrace of a Christmas-themed stuffed bear who sit on our living room couch during the holidays and went to bed.
The next day I'd forgotten all about the elf. No one spotted him before heading off to school so it wasn't until later that afternoon that I heard Ella gasp and shout "Mom! Mom! Ron is here!"
What? Was that pure childish glee in her little voice? Could it be? Does she really think that plastic fake-looking elf is real?
Ella dashed outside to report her finding to Jack and then raced back in to take in the scene of Ron being embraced by the fluffy white bear wearing a Santa hat. She wondered how he had gotten there. She asked why his face looked like plastic and his eyes like stickers. She seemed genuinely happy to see him.
I'm not sure if she thinks he's real or not. What I do know is that the thought of him makes her happy. Perhaps we all have a secret desire to believe in things magical, however preposterous they may seem. I mean really, a plastic-looking elf comes to life every night and flies to the North Pole to report to Santa? And then he manages to make it ALL THE WAY back before morning?
This morning Ella came into my room and in a worried voice reported "I can't find Ron anywhere. Where is he?" I feigned ignorance and reminded her that I was still in the early stages of dragging myself from the depths of sleep. She found him a few short minutes later, this time being embraced by a statue of St. Nicholas on top of the piano. She then launched into a whole story of how she thought he may have gotten lost on his way back last night and ended up in Mexico.
I am holding onto her innocence for as long as I can. I can feel the minutes of her childhood ticking away like a little bomb. For that reason I'm relishing this whole elf thing and squeezing every last little ounce of fun out of it. We'd gotten lazy with the elf in the last year or two, forgetting to move him, putting him in the same place, chalking up the kids' growing disinterest in him as a fact of life.
Ella's interest in him seems rejuvenated this year. Jack obviously is playing along at this point, doing his part to keep the magic alive for his little sister. This may be our last year of this. Next year she'll be ten and I have a feeling this whole wonderful world of believing in the unbelievable may be gone by then.
Perhaps tomorrow morning Ella will find Ron wearing a tiny sombrero, proof that maybe he did make a pit stop in Mexico.
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