Nothing says “Christmas Cheer” like a 4 year old’s PRECIOUS scout elf igniting in to flames and losing a limb.

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It’s here, and there is nothing we can do about it. The holidays are here. While I personally LOVE the holidays, I do NOT love all of the work that goes along with it. Yea, sure…the first Christmas after my first child was born I was ALL ABOUT THE EXTRAS:

We MUST have 17 “baby’s first Christmas” ornaments, 16 is simply not enough.

We MUST have the all the hot new “gotta-have” toys. I don’t care if I have to stand in line at 4 am in the freezing freaking blizzard with frozen snotcicles hanging from my face, I WILL get that stupid new gizmo that Everlee will no-doubt play with for 2 seconds tops.

We MUST have our entire house covered in tinsel and lights and figurines and mangers and marshmallow flavored reindeer poop. I will spend weeks decorating because this is Everlee’s FIRST CHRISTMAS and it must be MAGICAL. (Not considering that she was a mere 3 months old and still pooped her pants and couldn’t see past her own hand. Yea, I’m sure she loved the MAGICAL home. *fart noise*)

And yes…we MUST have the ELF. 

The elf.

The effing elf.

But, things are different now. In my mere 4 years of being a mother, I now know that literally NONE of those things need to happen. Do we need a “baby’s first Christmas” ornament? I say yes, but ONE would suffice.

Do we need the “must-have, hot, new stupid-mother-freaking-never-gonna-be-worth-half-the-cost” toy? HELL TO THE NO. Not at all. It’s not worth the snotcicles. Here’s some Play-Doh, that’s fun, too. HEY! Maybe you could make a Play-Doh recreation of that AWESOME toy to make it seem like you actually got one?! Santa says he won’t be making that toy for Christmas but he specifically told Mommy to wait two weeks and then buy it for half the price and in the comfort of a warm, well lit toy aisle.

Does the house REALLY have to be decked out from top to bottom with everything glittery and Christmas-y and reindeer-y? Yes. Absolutely yes. F YES IT DOES, SCROOGE. I have yet to learn my lesson on this one. I am currently staring at a 3 foot wreath made entirely of ornaments and an 8 foot freshly cut (by hand by my manly-man husband, none-the-less) Christmas tree in my living room with 8 foot ceilings (do the math, suckas. It was a real Griswold moment trying to get that star on, I tell ya). I mean, I have a red velvet Santa wine bottle sleeve on my ever-emptying Cabernet bottle, for cripes’ sake. Lay off, I love living in a Winter Wonderland. BUT… Everlee IS infamous for dropping and breaking LITERALLY EVERYTHING EVER MADE and she managed to grab a snow globe that was etched with Leyton’s birth date (the only birth year momentum he has as per rule #1 listed above) and then let the precious momentum slip through her miniature butter fingers and hit the hardwood at rapid speeds. Thus sending shattered glass, fake snow, and water all over the bless-ed living room floor. So, I digress…

Which brings me to my last point: Do we REALLY need a flippin’ elf? Ugh….I DON’T EVEN KNOW. My first inclination is HELL NO. But then, it does lengthen out the magical time of Christmas and who doesn’t like MORE magic? It is also a FANTASTIC beacon of bribery for good behavior, and VERY effective if I might add. If I just merely breathe the words “the elf will tell Santa”, then she starts shaking in her tiny boots and her behavior immediately ceases. It’s GLORIOUS. But it didn’t start out like that, I had to work DAMN HARD to get to this point.

Let me set the scene for you:

It’s the night of Thanksgiving, and the kids are already drooling in their turkey-induced slumbers. That’s when I go to elfy work. I run downstairs to attempt to find where I hid the damn Elf box the year before. A year before?! I can’t even remember why I walked in to a room, let alone think back a year prior. Waiting until the night the elf is supposed to make her grand appearance was probably not the BEST idea, because I could NOT find the blessed thing. Here I am, all spider-monkeyed up on the storage shelves rummaging through boxes of obscure items in a feeble attempt to recover THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS. And then I found it. Underneath two easter baskets, a bundt pan, and some half empty bottles of liquor that I forgot I had (AMEN, amirite??), it was just sitting there shining in it’s very own personal beacon of Christmas light. HALLELUJAH, let’s get this show on the road.

I open up the box and there she was. CLEMENTINE. Clementine the fickle Christmas elf. But where was the damn book? I rustled in a few more boxes and quickly tired of the charade. I will just tell Everlee that Clementine got hungry throughout the year and ate the book. BOOM. Bye bye book.

So I take the creepy little Clementine upstairs and sit down to write a handwritten note (with my left hand of course because stupid little elves CLEARLY don’t have good handwriting and who am I to ruin the fun?) telling the kids just how excited Clementine is to be back. I also made sure to add P.S. BRUSH YOUR TEETH (because if I am going to go through this elf agony night after night then I am going to get some parenting perks out of it. And that tooth brush fight every morning is enough to send me in to concerning amounts of coffee consumption). Then I sit the little bastard next to a pre-assembled  gingerbread house that I bought at Target (it was 25% off on Cartwheel. BAM! and pre-assembled so I didn’t have to do S***. Win win.) and lovingly place the note in her tiny little ha……..wait. She doesn’t have hands. And her fake felt mitt nubs are sewn together. What the hell am I supposed to do with THAT, elf manufacturers?! How is she supposed to hold her tiny shooters on margarita night?! But that’s beyond the point…

Now it’s finally here. The morning has come and I am ready to reap the benefits of all of my elfly hard work. Everlee starts her morning routine of whine, whine, fake fart noise, whine, REAL fart noise, whine-whine-whine, cereal. When she FINALLY sees Clementine on the table, the reaction was less than satisfactory for me. Not only was Everlee NOT excited, she completely didn’t buy it.

“Who’s toy is THAT?”

“It’s not a toy, hunny. It’s our Elf named Clementine. Remember? You named her. She flew here all the way from the North Pole!”

“No, she didn’t. She’s just a toy. She can’t fly.”

“She’s MAGIC! She comes alive at night to fly back to Santa. Then she returns to our house and takes a new position.”

(WHERE IS THAT DAMN BOOK WHEN I NEED IT!)

“Mom….seriously? She’s made out of PLASTIC.” As she takes her 4 year old finger and pokes Clementines face.

*poke. poke. poke. WHAP*

“See, Mom?! She’s plastic and fake. She’s not a REAL elf. Can I play with her? (she grabs Clementine) *GASP* I know! Maybe she wants to play with my CHOKKINS! (That’s Everlee for ‘Shopkins’)”

At this point, I’m starting to wonder how exactly I am going to convince this smart little preschooler that this is real. And then I think…do I even WANT to convince her? THIS IS MY OUT! THE ELF COULD BE GONE FOREVER! But I ultimately cave in to my inner mommy guilt and decide that yes, let’s try to squeeze out a little magic if we can.

“Everlee, you can’t touch Clementine! If you touch her, she will lose all of her magic and she won’t be able to fly back to Santa tonight!”

“MOM! SHE DOESN’T FLY TO SANTA! SHE’S JUST A TOYYYYYYY! LOOK! She doesn’t even have FEET!! How does she walk?  SHE CAN’T WALK!!”

Mmmmmkay, kid….so this is the game you’d like to play.Well, GAME ON. You’re only 4! Why isn’t this an EASY convince?! But, you’re right. She DOESN’T have feet. And that’s weird. How does she walk? Hell if I know. On her tiny elf nubs, I suppose. Don’t you dare ask me how she walks in snow, because those nubs would SURELY sink like a greased up elephant.

So I frantically text my much-more-seasoned-mom-than-me sister for some tips and pointers on how to convince Everlee that this elf is real WITHOUT the book that was created for this very same reason. But since my sister is a mom-genius, she gave me some great tips.

*Fast forward to a few days later* I have downloaded the Portable North Pole app for Everlee, pulled up the Elf on the Shelf movie on her iPad for her to view at her leisure, talked my face off about the elves and Santa and had Santa call my cell phone on multiple occasions to speak with Everlee. Never mind the fact that those Santa calls are scarring her delicate 4 year old ego to the point that my husband thinks she needs counseling, but I finally feel like I won. She believes.

Until…..until “the day that shall never be spoken of” happened.

On this particular day, Everlee had quite the believer setback. I was upstairs getting Leyton up and ready for the day while Everlee made her way downstairs to break everything in my house make some cereal, when I heard her yell the dreaded words:

“MOOOOM! CLEMENTINE DIDN’T MOVE LAST NIGHT! SHE’S STILL HANGING ON THE LAMP!!! WHY DIDN’T SHE MOOOOOOVE?!”

OMG. OMG! This is the moment every elf parent hates. I forgot to move the elf. I FORGOT TO MOVE THE DAMN ELF. It’s only the 3rd day, and I already forgot to move the little f****r. So my brain goes in to overdrive trying to come up with the reason that Clementine didn’t move. And then it hit me.

HER FEET! Everlee can’t figure out why she doesn’t have feet! Let’s roll with it:

“Ev, I think Clementine didn’t move because, since she doesn’t have feet, she couldn’t climb out of her lamp hole. BUT the good news is, I bet her elf friends are on the way to help and will get her out. I’ll bet she gets free here soon.”

CRUSHED IT. Totally believable. SHE HAS NO FLIPPIN’ FEET! No feet for the mother-effin’ WIN! Don’t judge me, either. I was put on the spot! I panicked!

And then, it happened:

“Ok, yea, you’re probably right, Mom. But…it looks kind of BLACK in that lamp hole?”

??????? WHAT? What is she talking about?

I set that bizarre comment aside and carry on with my morning duties. Once I got the kids adequately distracted, I promptly  marched over to STUPID Clementine to move her while Ev was out of the room and I quickly realized that something wasn’t right. She wouldn’t move. She was…stuck. Almost sticky?! WHAT. THE ACTUAL. HELL?

I tug a few times and she finally “unsticks” from the lamp.

OH. SHIT.

Her ass! Her ass! Her poor, tiny, plastic little ass was GONE! And melted! and BLACK! MAYDAY! CLEMENTINE’S ASS BURNT OFF! SHE’S NOW ASSLESS ELFY MCGEE!

And then it hit me. No, I mean LITERALLY hit me. HER LEG. Her leg dropped from the light and hit me square in my head like a not-so-subtle reminder that I SUCK at this Elf thing! CLEMENTINE’S EFFIN’ FOOTLESS LEG FELL OFF.

Folks, meet the new and improved Clementine:

I know what you are thinking: “What type of moronic parent puts the damn elf on a LAMP?” Well, first off, SHUT IT. I THOUGHT it was a lamp that went very much unused. I ALSO thought that Clementine’s SWEET LITTLE STUPID BUTT was not close to the light bulbs. Stupid Clementine must have had too much sauce in her hot chocolate at the North Pole the night before and slipped down a little tooooooo low. There should be a warning on the tag: “PRODUCT MAY SHIFT!” So just SAVE IT, WOULD YA.

Now, this is not good. I must act quickly! First, I say a little prayer to thank God for not burning my mother-effing house down via Elf sabotage. Secondly, I call my mom in a frantic attempt to SAVE CHRISTMAS and ask  her if Everlee can come play for a bit. She happily obliges (Thank God for grandmas!!) and I get Leyton all bundled up so we can rapidly head to Target to replace Clementine, all while I curse the fact that I get to pay ANOTHER $30 to fix this melty mistake.

Once we get to Target, I hurry as fast as I can to the very back of the store  (thanks a lot, Target, couldn’t put them up front, could ya?!) so that we won’t be late for Leyton’s doctor appointment downtown. We finally reach the “Elf Adoption Center” (seriously……..wtf) and *GASP*! There are no girl elves left!! MAYDAY! Everlee would FOR SURE notice that Clementine turned in to Chippy during her brief absence. I start sweating  profusely and my heart starts beating fast and I die a little inside. Then, I pull my s*** together and rally just long enough to answer my ringing phone.

“Hello, is this Alison?”

“Yes.”

“Hi. This is (insert nice nurse lady’s name here) from the pediatric office. The doctor has a meeting this morning so we need to move your appointment up to 11:00. Can you make that?”

It is currently 10:24 and it takes a GOOD 40 minutes to get to the doctor’s office.

“Ummm…Oh, boy. I think so?!? I am at Target right now purchasing another stupid elf because I just forgot to move my damn elf and then caught her on fire and my daughter’s every belief is hinging on this ONE FREAKING MOMENT! If I can stop panicking long enough to find a girl elf that appears to be sold out and then purchase said girl elf and then load my massive baby in the car and then safely speed to get there, then YES. I CAN MAKE IT.”

” Um, OK good then. Thank you?”

SHIIIIIIIIIIIITTTT! Let’s go, Leyton! SHIT JUST GOT REAL!

**finds nearest Target employee and begs and pleads for them to go in their back room and pull out ONE FREAKING GIRL ELF that did NOT have her ass melted off!**

Santa must have been on my side on this one, because they had just one girl elf left in the entire store. THANK YOU, INFANT CHRISTMAS BABY JESUS! I then grab my cute fat baby that is CLUELESS as to why Mommy is being a complete psycho and get him loaded up in the car and to the doctor’s office just in time for the new 11:00 appointment only to be greeted with:

“Oh, did you know your appointment isn’t until 11:30?”

**Fast forward 2 hours*

I rush home before picking Everlee up so that I can instill MAJOR Clementine damage control. I throw the burnt carcass of dead Clementine in the trash and hide it under a plastic bag. The literal LAST thing I need is to go through all this damn trouble and then have Everlee see fried Clementine laying lifeless in the trash. 

I carefully place the new, non-toasted Clementine in the tree with two new elf ornaments to cover up the massive mistake that is me. I figure I can make those two little elf ornaments the “friends that helped footless Clementine slide her nubs out of the lamp and in to the tree”. Now this damage control has costed me $36 instead of the already-irritating $30. But, unfortunately, this is no ones fault but my own. Hey, at least I get a new Elf book out of the deal since the other book is still M.I.A and Ev needs constant reassurance to make sense of this whimsical Christmas magic.

My brain now says GET RID OF THE DAMN ELF. And after all of this is said and done, Clementine will NOT be coming back next year.

But then, Everlee arrives home. And she finds new Clementine in the tree with her two new best friends. And she is PUMPED. I would even venture to say ecstatic. And that DAMN mom heart in me melts when I see the pure joy and excitement on her face.

And THAT…is how Clementine got invited back for 2017.

SHIT.