Elf off the Shelf

So Madison wrote a note to Santa last night, which started out as "I like you, Santa."  But it sort of changed as she wrote it to "I love you Santa."  We left it under the tree, and thought this might be a good opportunity for Santa to introduce a friend to the house:  the elf on the shelf.  It's a current fad that started a few years ago:  we saw it before we had Madison at a local shop, and heard that relentless theme song, "The Elf on the Shelf is watching you, watching you..."

Anyway, Mommy was naturally excited about the prospect of inviting the elf into our house, but the first step apparently is naming him.  Madison this morning saw her elf friend under the tree and was quite excited.  She named him "Jingle Bell," as that seems to be "a good elf name."

We're looking forward to posting elf updates here, showing where he shows up each morning.  Mommy has been doing quite a bit of research, looking up where the other elves on shelves are appearing, and she's quite inspired.  I imagine Jingle Bell will start out subtly, and as we get closer to Christmas, things may get a bit more outlandish.

Meanwhile, the rest of the day was all business.  Madison had piano and ballet, which are the regular time-eaters of the day.  She enjoyed both immensely.  Daddy loved watching her stomp around on these buckets that go beneath her feet - sort of like stilts.  She did this with the other students to mark out quarter notes - we're all learning actually quite a bit in this class.  Daddy and Mommy too!  We're not just learning about notes, of course.  We're also learning about the different keys - lately we've been in the key of F, where the right thumb starts on the fa note.  We're learning all kinds of chords and harmonies, and although we're pretty slow to begin with, we have great prospects for the future.  Yes, even Daddy and Mommy may be able to play a little.  It's one of Daddy's pipe dreams to be able to play one of those grand pianos in a hotel lobby or entrance area to a cruise ship - just a short little diddy played in the evening hours.

Speaking of cruise ship, we've got plans for next Thanskgiving, I think.  Maybe another Disney Cruise?  You read it here first.

Tonight we watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" before going to bed.  What a classic!  Mommy, Madison and Daddy watched that together on the couch, and then went up to put Madison to bed, where Daddy read to her the "Elf on the Shelf" book.  It's cute, and Madison was quite focused on the story.

Some feel it's kind of creepy in a way, of course.  Although it is nowhere near as creepy as Krampus, another Christmas tradition in Austria and Germany that Madison will not know about for many years to come.  We've been intrigued by this character this week at the office, laughing at how repulsive this idea is.  Apparently, this creature Krampus is an anti-Santa Claus that comes to naughty kids.  But he doesn't just deliver coal though - no, this evil beast visits houses with naughty kids, and then takes them off in his wash bucket, presumably to eat them.  At one point, Europeans believed (and some still believe) that this encourages kids to behave.  Apparently in these Alpine countries, where positive reinforcement fails (rewarding kids with presents and so forth), they resorted to threats of a visitation from Krampus.  That's tomorrow night, by the way.  He'll be in the area, as he always visits each December 5th.

Hope you've been good...