The Elf Has Left The Building!

PEOPLE.

You know it’s soooooo close to Christmas when the family elves start departing for the North Pole!

Our dear elf, Leaf, always leaves a couple days prior to Christmas Eve, as he has seven brothers and seven sisters (he’s the eldest of all 15), and has to pick them alllll up on the way back home. ;)

Plus, Leaf—despite his never-ending antics within our casa—seems a little people-shy and always wants to head out before company arrives in town.

So it was no surprise when he left his goodbyes and love this morning, and a promise to see us again next year.

Can’t believe another Christmas season has come and gone with him here. And in his honor, it’s definitely time to look at some of his 2021 shenanigans:

Of course, he made his grande entrance, as usual. Traveling as his typically does—via elf hot air balloon:

Then the next morning, we found him all tied up, in his attempt to replicate one of our holiday projects, tehe:





The next morning, he’d managed to borrow an ax from another family elf in Wisconsin and hacked his way free of the pipe cleaners:

Tehe…we loved his lumberjack gear. :)



A few days later, he was in a different sort of trouble. He got stuck cleaning up some reindeer poo, and there was toilet paper dragged all the way from the upstairs bathroom to the downstairs, back patio door.

For the record, this one brought the kiddos great joy because potty humor with youngins is always a win.



Luckily, things took a much classier turn after that. It was the kiddos’ holiday fancy dress day at school, so Leaf put on his own fancy clothes and tried to mimic another project we’d recently completed.



The best part about this day and setup was that the kiddos were safe to carry the jar around without disturbing Leaf’s magic. So he hung out with us in a handful of places.



The next day, Leaf stayed in the jar and helped some exhausted parents out, a bit. My three crazies were having a sleepover in Little Man’s room, and Leaf tried to make it a little harder for them to get out of the room and wake us up too early on a Saturday morning.





A day or so later, he took a turn for the adorable, dressing up like the drum line members we’d seen the day before at our special church service. :)



I think I posted about the reindeer and sleigh the kiddos and I made on a happy afternoon that Leaf later used for a joy ride. :)





But later, he got a bit more adventurous than a joy ride, creating his own little swinging ride from the second story landing, ha. He claimed he just wanted to drop some snowflakes from just the right angle. ;)

Alas…he had a bit of an accident trying to climb back up his swing contraption and ended up in a cast:

Poor, Leaf. Crutches and all. :(

He asked the kiddos to make him a soft place to rest and recuperate that night, and gave permission to move him with gloves on. The kiddos considered it a great honor to get him all settled and tucked in. With chocolate to help him heal. :)



The next day, Leaf was much recovered and hanging out in a stocking. And then spent three nights playing hide and seek in each of the kiddos’ rooms. 

Alas, I was a bit of a failure and didn’t manage to get pics those days.

But I did snag one of this hilarious setup that definitely made me giggle:



It came with a lovely note, along with a subtle life lesson (as Leaf is prone to spouting wisdom or giving helpful behavior reminders). This one was a gentle tip to play nice with one another and not let things get out of hand, ha.



Once again, as always, it was a mad joy to have our mischievous elf with us.

And we can’t WAIT for yet another year.

Thank you, Leaf, for all the 2021 fun!

Over and out.