The Elf Pants: A New Holiday Tradition!

Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have started this post off with the photo above. It may have been more effective to instill a bit of a sense of intrigue and build up some mystery about what this "New Tradition" I speak of is all about. But you can't really title a blog "Elf Pants" without showing some elf pants, can you? Anyway, let's get to the point.

This little story about the genesis of a new holiday tradition for our family started back in August while we were at The In-Laws' house. And I should probably mention here that this "Family Tradition" is really probably only considered to be a tradition by me at this point. I'm going to try my best to make it ring true for the rest of the family...but it could prove to be a bit of an uphill battle.

The Tiny Creature is big into tiny things. Pretty much anything that is in miniature form will appeal to her. She has a collection of tiny erasers of all different kinds of foods and animals. She also still plays with her American Girl dolls. At nine years old she might not necessarily be considered "too old" to do so, but she did seem to be losing interest in all things American Girl a year or two ago (American Girl Burnout?). But then she rebounded and found a renewed interest in the stuff. I think the reason for that is the simple fact that American Girl dolls have so many accessories. And said accessories are all tiny versions of real, normal, everyday kinds of things. That's right in her sweet spot.

Some of The Creature's tiny eraser collection

The Creature is also very much into crafts and crafting. She goes to a weekly after-school art program where she makes all kinds of works of art. One of her favorite ways to express her creative side is through duct tape. Her grandmother has a large variety of craft supplies (including many different colors of duct tape) at her house. Whenever we're visit The In-Laws the Creature will almost always enlist Grammie into some sort of craft-making exercise. They have engineered a number of interesting duct tape creations. The most impressive of all was the duct tape dress they made a couple years back. Yes, they made a full-sized dress that the Tiny Creature could actually wear...out of duct tape!

Yep, that dress is made out of...duct tape!

Now that you know of these two interests (tiny things and crafting) that the Creature holds dear it might not come as a huge surprise that she enjoys combining the two interests by making tiny things when she's crafting. She really loved making boxes of miniature doughnuts out of Cheerios and putting them into matchboxes decorated as doughnut boxes. And you can make all sorts of tiny food models with that Sculpey clay stuff! But what does all of this have to do with what may or may not be a new family holiday tradition?

Tiny foods made from Sculpey and glued to a sea shell

Well, as I mentioned earlier, we were visiting The In-Laws back in August. The Tiny Creature spotted a miniature wicker basket that was part of a centerpiece display on the dinner table. It was just a little (1 1/2 or 2 inches across?) empty basket, but she really focused in on it and just HAD to do something with it. She grabbed some trusty duct tape and asked me what colors could be found in a watermelon. Next thing I knew she was putting different colors of tape together and cutting up a storm on a counter top in the kitchen. I looked down and saw what can be seen in the photo below. With no hesitation my mind tried to figure out what it was, and it came to the conclusion that The Creature was fashioning an elf out of duct tape and she had gotten only as far as the (red) pants and (green) shoes. It didn't occur to me that it seemed an odd thing to be making in August, and I also didn't seem to realize that she was actually done with whatever project she was working on. I just told her she did a good job and that I liked her "elf pants" (or something to that effect).

Then she showed me her actual finished project. It was a tiny slice of watermelon (with red fruit and a green rind) that was sitting in the tiny basket that had spurred on this sudden creative outburst in the first place. Suddenly and instantly I realized how ridiculous my "elf pants" conclusion was and I found it to be absolutely hilarious! I couldn't stop laughing, and the Monsters were also quite amused when I was able to get enough  air in to be able to explain it to them (or at least laughed along with me to humor me). What I saw as elf pants was of course the remnants of the tape the Creature had used to cut her watermelon out of. But to me it was more than a remnant waiting to be tossed into the trash. To me it was a pair of hilarious elf pants and I now simply couldn't let them get thrown out. I quietly slipped them into my pocket with plans to bring them out once again in a few months.

This brings us to December and our new Christmas tree. We all went to pick it out at a local farm and brought it home on top of our car. Once it was set up I put the lights on it and we all decorated it with our collection of ornaments we've put together over the years. Nearly all of the ornaments have special meaning to us--from some of the earliest examples of ornaments The Wife and I got when we were first dating to multiple "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments for both of the Little Monsters.

Once it seemed like we were pretty much done trimming the tree I announced that there was one special ornament that still had to go up. Everyone wondered what I was talking about as I pulled something out of a box that it had been hidden in for over three months. Yes, it was the infamous Elf Pants! It was greeted with mixed reactions, from amused to confused, but I proceeded to find a choice place on the tree to prop up the "ornament" on the tree (as it didn't have a hook or any other way to properly hang it). And it has just occurred to me now that this "ornament" was actually considered to be the leftover material from an unrelated project--something that should have been thrown away and forgotten about. But now the "Elf Pants" are hanging on our Christmas tree and I have no idea what became of the miniature slice of watermelon that was the actual intended purpose of this combination of red and green duct tape!

We haven't really acquired many new ornaments over the past two or three years, but the Elf Pants "ornament" is now something that should become a regular part of the annual trimming of the tree in our house--at least as far as I'm concerned! Hopefully it will be accepted by the rest of the family as a new annual tradition. I guess we'll see next year...

HAPPY

HOLIDAYS!