The Elf Fails

Once the Thanksgiving meal is over, it's time for the elf to make his appearance.  Yes, we STILL have Ralph visit us from Thanksgiving night to Christmas Eve.  I hope he'll be around for many years to come.  For us Ralph is less about "keeping an eye on the child for Santa" and more about alleviating tension that often comes with the season. (Although thankfully, this year the Christmas Crazy Kid level has been a little bit lower than usual.)

Emotions tend to run high this time of year.  Having Ralph around makes us laugh as he gets into some wacky situations (though nothing too crazy...I'm not cleaning up after any elf).  He may hide among the left over Halloween candy (not that there's much left now).  He may hang in the music room as a reminder for my son to practice the trumpet.  Or he may just hang off the ceiling fan in the living room for the fun of it.

The other morning when I found a package on our front doorstep for our son (UPS must have been working late the night before or I just didn't hear the truck), I decided to have Ralph deliver it.  

I knew what it was.  A new lunch bag as two days before Thanksgiving, there had been a yogurt "explosion" in my son's previous bag.  Who knew yogurt could fly into so many cracks and crevices and smell so bad after several hours?  I had my son go on line to LL Bean and find a new one.  He did and his grandmother (my fabulous mother-in-law) ordered it for him.  

Since it arrived earlier than anticipated, I figured I'd leave the package on the kitchen table and have Ralph make the presentation.  It was a rainy morning so I thought this would make a gray day bright.

The thought was good, the execution was good...the lunch bag not.  What looked blue on the computer was definitely more purple.  (Maybe I should have checked beforehand...Iris blue is definitely a purple based color.)  Do I need to say that my son wasn't happy?  So much for turning that frown upside down.

To be fair, he only got upset for a few minutes and I did manage to convince him that there was a solution. While he ate breakfast (reluctantly and most likely glaring at Ralph the whole time), I ran upstairs and went to llbean.com.  Quickly found the lunch bag and all its color and pattern choices.  When my son came up I had him pick the color he wanted (no patterns for him) and also asked him for a backup choice.  Filled out the exchange form (which was included in the package along with a UPS return label), put the lunch bag back in the package, and taped it up.  (My son DID cut the bag, but it was still usable.)  Told my son that he would get a new lunch bag in a couple of weeks.

As we headed out to school, I made sure I passed by a local business that has a UPS box out front.  Had him put the package in and we were good.  The wait will be a little longer than we had hoped for, but he should get the "right" one before Christmas (and the winter break).

This might have been an elf fail. (I'm not taking responsibility at all here!  I mean, it's not like I SHOULD have opened the package and looked inside PRIOR to setting up the "presentation.") However, it wasn't an EPIC elf fail.  I'm not even sure that there IS such a thing as an epic elf fail.

Meanwhile, Ralph will continue to hang around for the holiday.




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