{"id":5293,"date":"2011-11-25T09:13:06","date_gmt":"2011-11-25T14:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/?p=5293"},"modified":"2011-11-25T09:44:04","modified_gmt":"2011-11-25T14:44:04","slug":"the-season-is-in-full-swing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/?p=5293","title":{"rendered":"The season is in full swing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On his way home tonight, Dan is stopping to pick up our Christmas tree. \u00a0A real one. \u00a0Our first real one in many years. \u00a0Remember <a href=\"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/?p=410\">this<\/a>? \u00a0(We re-told this story to Dan&#8217;s aunt the other night and it still made us laugh so hard we were crying &#8211; 7 long years later).<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re pretty excited. \u00a0We normally wait until after December 1 to decorate but Jaia has been asking, almost daily. \u00a0And Wes, well he is so far oblivious to what is about to happen. \u00a0But soon he will see the beauty of Christmas and then he&#8217;ll quickly realize that it wouldn&#8217;t take much to tear it all down. \u00a0Literally.<\/p>\n<p>We are in for some trouble. \u00a0Or the Christmas tree is, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>This Saturday evening we&#8217;ll be unwrapping treasured ornaments and telling stories from when we were little. \u00a0We&#8217;ll be sipping on egg nog or hot chocolate (some weirdos don&#8217;t like egg nog) and humming Christmas carols. \u00a0The best part of decorating, and of the whole Christmas season, for me anyway, is that not much changes. \u00a0Replaying traditions keeps us connected to the past and rekindles the feelings of the pure joy we experienced as kids at Christmastime.<\/p>\n<p>But sometime change is good. \u00a0In small doses, anyway. \u00a0This year we&#8217;re adding a new tradition. \u00a0The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elfontheshelf.com\/\">Elf on the Shelf<\/a> is moving in. \u00a0Jaia doesn&#8217;t know yet. \u00a0We&#8217;re bringing him out tomorrow. \u00a0And she gets to name him. \u00a0(Can you imagine what this kid is going to come up with??)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/elf_shelf_b.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5296\" title=\"elf_shelf_b\" src=\"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/elf_shelf_b.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/elf_shelf_b.jpg 250w, http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/elf_shelf_b-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/elf_shelf_b-160x160.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The gist:<\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>At Christmastime the elf leaves the North Pole and comes to your house. Since Santa can&#8217;t be everywhere to see who is naughty and nice. He needs his elf on the shelf to help.\u00a0It&#8217;s up to the elf to be the eyes and ears for Santa.<\/li>\n<li>The elf\u00a0listens and watches and then gives a report back to Santa each night, when he flies home to the North Pole.<\/li>\n<li>The elf arrives back at the house\u00a0<strong>every day in a different location<\/strong>, ready to watch and listen again.<\/li>\n<li>The elf does not speak to children, but he can and does speak with parents.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0On Christmas Eve the elf can either fly home for good, until next year, or he can come back for Christmas Day to watch the children open their gifts. You decide.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>I think we are going to fake a package arriving by mail so it&#8217;s more believable. \u00a0But then, to a little girl and boy whose eyes open wide at the sight of first snow or a lit Santa on someone&#8217;s lawn as we drive by, methinks that they would believe just about anything. \u00a0This little guy is going to up the magic ante significantly in the Fullerton household this year.<\/p>\n<p>Does anyone else Elf on the Shelf?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On his way home tonight, Dan is stopping to pick up our Christmas tree. \u00a0A real one. \u00a0Our first real one in many years. \u00a0Remember this? \u00a0(We re-told this story to Dan&#8217;s aunt the other night and it still made us laugh so hard we were crying &#8211; 7 long years later). We&#8217;re pretty excited. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[24,26,51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5293"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5293"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5300,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5293\/revisions\/5300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}