Peek A Boo !

We have a Shelf Elf. 

His name is Norf Dorf.

He's about 4" tall, stocky, and has bright lime green hair that sticks straight up - bursting out of the top of his top hat.  He looks suspiciously like one of those "so-ugly-they're-cute" troll dolls that were popular back in the 80's/90's.

ok, he actually IS one of those troll dolls that was popular back in the 80's/90's.

Norf Dorf hides somewhere different in our house every day and observes the manners he sees being practiced.  Then every night, after the Grommets go to sleep, he magically whisks himself away to the North Pole to report directly to Santa the manners of the day.  Once his report is complete, he returns to our home and hides again to repeat the ceremony.

He usually shows up right around the time we set our Christmas Tree up, and on Christmas Eve, he hides within the Christmas Tree itself, excited to watch my Angels tear through their diligently-earned Christmas Bounty.

He has some pretty amazing hiding places:  On the topmost shower soap dish, suspended from the light fixture in the hallway,  peeking from behind potted house plants, nestled in the basket containing our toothbrushes and toothpaste (holding a toothbrush of his own, of course), balancing on the top of door or window casings, replacing the baby Jesus in the manger of our porcelain Nativity, etc.  Sometimes he has bows in his hair, sometimes he removes his jacket or his shoes, sometimes he has lipstick on, and other times his clothes will be on backwards...  One morning he was bearing letters to the children, and often, when we listen with our hearts, we can here him singing and talking to us.

As it's important that his hiding place is novel, convincing, and n'er repeated - especially since he has to be kept out of reach of the kids (if he gets touched by people, he goes back to the North Pole and won't come back to our house till next year) -  I have multiple opportunities in this cozy cottage of mine for creativity when deciding how/where to hide him each night. Sometimes it's just a pain in my butt and I want to just get the heck into bed.

Well, the other night, Norf Dorf decided to hang suspended, upside down, from the pull cord of one of our ceiling fans.  The fob at the end of the pull cord is a beautiful 2" long, faceted, clear crystal.  I dutifully twisted and tugged and wrapped the cord around one of his legs and wedged him "just right" with the cord and the fob to give the amazing illusion of magical, daring, watchful inversion.  My efforts paid off and he looked great.  I went to bed excited for the girls to discover him in the morning.

"MOM!  MOM!  Wake up!" they shouted, long before the sun considered peeking over the horizon, "come look!!"  ... and then they laughed and laughed and laughed.  "Mommmmmmmmm-- wake up!  Come look at the Shelf Elf!  He's hiding in the fan and he thinks the diamond is his penis!!  Come look!!!  ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaa!"

Yeah - the way I had wedged the crystal fob had created a magnificently obvious phallus standing tall and clear between his legs.

oops.