The Elf on the Shelf

McIver and I had to go to Learning Express in Rice Village today to find a Christmas gift for some special friends. When I went to the counter to pay (wink, wink), the clerk said that someone (she thought it might have been one of Santa's elves) had left a package for us earlier today.

So, after I dangled the idea of opening a secret present over the kids for a good part of the evening, we let them open the special package. Here they are all bright-eyed and curious...

Meet Houston, our Elf on the Shelf. We decided to name him Houston (Daddy's suggestion) because we live here and wanted to always remember where we were when he first came to our family.

Houston came with a book explaining his story. He's one of Santa's elves, of course, and will fly to Santa's workshop every night to report to Santa whether Olivia and McIver have been naughty or nice. There are a few rules - no one is allowed to touch Houston or his magic might go away. And, Santa won't let Houston talk to us, although we can talk to Houston any time we like to tell him something nice about someone else or maybe even tell him what's on our wish list for Christmas. According to the book, Houston is supposed to come back to our house every morning and we're supposed to make a game out of finding him. Let me assure you that the kids were the definition of 'nice' all night tonight. They cleaned up the wrapping paper and insisted that I tell Houston what they were doing.

It didn't take long for McIver to start telling Houston exactly what is on his list. The first thing he told him was a 'spaceship with an alien' which was news to me.

Olivia seemed a bit less sure about Houston. She swears that she saw his eyes move and I'm pretty sure he winked at me. Olivia read one of her Book Fair books to us all tonight - and she made sure to read loud enough for Houston to hear and even turned the book around so he could see the pictures at the end of each page.

Olivia also told me that if she starts 'misbehaving, then just remind me about Houston and I'll straighten right up!'

Wonder where he'll be tomorrow morning!?