I bought Miss Neenee an Elf on the Shelf.  After I took her & had her pick it out & bought it, I had the thought, ‘Perhaps this Elf on the Shelf was just supposed to “appear magically” from Santa’s Wonderland.’  Well, I mess that up.  We got her home, read the book, named her Gracia (you say it GRAY-Sha like the girl we fell in love with on the Voice that yodeled.)  Anyway, we also registered her on line & of course Santa Claus sent us an email.  He is just awesome that way.  For those of you, like me, that may not be sure what to do with an Elf on the Shelf, let me give you a short run down of what’s up with it.  So, the elf is at your house to watch your kids to make sure they are being good for Santa.  Each night, the elf magically goes back up to the North Pole & tells Santa what they saw the kids doing that day.  The next morning, you wake up & the elf has moved somewhere else in house, for you to find.  On Christmas, Santa takes the elf back to the North Pole to stay until about oh, let’s see, Thanksgiving the next year.  Then the elf comes back.  Miss Neenee told me we could not touch the elf or it would lose it’s magic & die.  Some elves are mischievous.  However, I think ours is not too bad.   The 1^st day, well, let’s just say she did not feel too welcome.

Let me explain this situation.  Some of Miss Neenee’s other toys must have gotten jealous of this new toy.  They tied Gracia up & the duck is holding a sign that reads: “GO HOME! This is our house!”  Poor Gracia.  Not exactly the welcoming committee.  Miss Neenee did spank the 4 dolls bottoms & explained in pure Southern tongue, that what they had done was NOT acceptable. It went something like,”Lord, have mercy, ya’ll.  Ya’ll all are gettin’ lumps of coal!”

The 2^nd day, Gracia must have got to looking for something sweet to eat.  We found her in the pantry, no less, drinking pancake syrup. Miss Neenee said elves LOVE sweet stuff.

We will see what all this elf gets in to.  I will say a friend of mine told me she saw on Facebook “The Belt on the Shelf”.  Which as you can imagine was supposed to be for kids that did not respond properly to much anything else, especially an elf watching them.  I saw some kids in the grocery store yesterday that could have used that.  It was a dad with a boy around 6yrs. & a little girl about 4yrs.  They were acting like a bunch of wild Banshee Indians.  He was telling them to quit this & quit that.  I just thought, why don’t you tell them Santa’s watching? That usually does the trick, this time of year.  Or stop talking & take them to the bathroom & make them understand that acting good in the grocery store is the right thing to do- with his belt.  I cannot stand hearing parents over & over telling their kids to behave, stop it, quit it.  We were not raised like that.  If my Mama had to tell us past once, she would definitely tell us in a way we understood.  And if we didn’t there was always Daddy.

I hope everyone is taking in your Christmas traditions.  It will be over & gone before we know it! It’s been wonderful visiting with you today.  I have to be going now, because I should be washing clothes.