Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

Elf on the Shelf in Hindsight

We bought our Elf on the Shelf in 2008. I was smitten by his vintage style. His felt elf suit seemed so very Etsy. His book had old-school illustrations, as if I'd pulled it from my childhood bookshelf.

It's inspiring that mother daughter duo Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell self-published the book after being rejected by publisher after publisher.

Elf on the Shelf first appeared in stores in 2005. We bought ours in 2008, when my boys were four and they were instant believers.

Oh, bah humbug.

Oops, did that just come out of my mouth?

Fast forward three years. My son, who is now seven, crept into my room at 6am and whispered loudly, "The elf didn't move. That's because the parents move him and YOU forgot to move him."

Whether I fessed up in my grogginess or whether I wove another tale like, "The elf didn't move because he had nothing to report," I don't remember.

My kids are starting to gather data points about the non-existence of Elf on the Shelf. The doubting began two year's ago when they were 5, in fact. I think there are too many holes in the stories I've woven, too many inconsistencies told, too many times my kids have seen Elf on the Shelf FOR SALE at the store.

We raise our kids to be thinkers, to question what doesn't make sense. We tell them not to lie. We instill in them a sense of logic. And then like a religious theory, we hope they'll believe that the elf is real without any concrete proof. I invited Elf on the Shelf into our home because I wanted my children to have a memorable childhood. (My family celebrates Christmas purely as a securlar holiday so that is my mindset here.)

In hindsight, the Santa lie is easier to perpetuate. It's a more clear-cut lie that requires less maintenance. Kids who choose nice over naughty will be rewarded with a present from Santa on Christmas day.

With Elf on the Shelf, parents must invent little white lies almost daily. You move the elf nightly, and then you talk about him, inventing things as you go. Forget to move him, and you really have explaining to do.

The oldest Elf on the Shelf kids are probably between the ages of 7 and 10 now. Some of these older kids really, truly still believe. Others say they believe, but they know the truth; they're just not fessing up.

My boys are very much like the 9-year-old boy from the Elf on the Shelf: An Elf's Story CBS television special which aired this past week (we watched in online after it aired). That boy was on the non-believer side at first, sort of rolling his eyes and calling the Elf names like, "stinky ..." which made my kids laugh and then magic happened and the boy became a believer. I know there are 9-year-olds who believe in all this magic, but I also know that my boys could be laughed at by the many non-believers in their age group and beyond.

By now, nearly every family I know who celebrates Christmas has an Elf on the Shelf and they are all enamored with this new tradition. But it dawned on me that none of these families has yet had to deal with the big question of whether the elf is real. We know the "Is Santa real?" question is coming, but it seems that kids will come to question the existence of Elf on the Shelf far sooner that they would Santa.

Who will the Elf on the Shelf bring down with him? Santa, the Easter Bunny and - gasp - the Tooth Fairy?

So go out and get an Elf on the Shelf. If you already have one, enjoy the tradition. But just know it could all end in one big let down. I'm just sayin'.

Once the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, I plan to still bring out our Elf on the Shelf as a Christmas tradition. I'll hide him and let the kids find him. It will still be a fun tradition. My boys act out the world of Harry Potter in their make-believe life. They know it's a fictional story. So in a way, it's a bit absurd to continue convicing my boys that Elf on the Shelf is real.

How will you let your kids know the truth? Did your kids transfer doubts about Elf on the Shelf over to Santa? Or did you tell your kids the truth from the get-go? Did your family have an elf that predates Elf on the Shelf?

It'll be interesting to see how families will handle the day when Elf on the Shelf loses his magic. I'm sure the moment of truth will fill our Facebook streams in a couple of years.

Finding out that Santa is not real is for some a rite of passage. But I think I just wasn't prepared to have to maintain the myth of Elf on the Shelf as well.

Related posts:

We Touched Elf on the Shelf

Elf on the Shelf (from the Elf's perspective)

 

16 Ridiculously Active Zombies

I went insane the other day and invited 16 boys over to my house for a Halloween party. We went all Plants versus Zombies, building the theme around a fabulous cake, designed by the talented Pam Smith, a mom at our former preschool.

Dress as a zombie, or dress as you like, I told each boy. I figured if most of the boys came as zombies, they'd be rendered a little slow, based on their obvious disfigurements and missing limbs.

Then my crazy mind went to an even crazier place and decided to put on a little backyard Halloween carnival. We'd hand our young guests 25 tickets (from a roll of raffle tickets) upon arrival which they could use to play games. A win at any game, entititled the guest to a prize ticket (tiny playing cards).

Then I went crazier still at the landfill site, Oriental Trading Company. I bought glow-in-the-dark rats, bats, eyeballs, skeletons and other creepy crawlers. I bought kites and foam gliders and aliens embalmed in slime, you know, for the BIG sought after prizes, the kind you see at Chuck E. Cheese that cost 250 tickets.

This is what you do when you have school age boys. You host a gross out fest. I thought briefly of having the boys compete in an arm fart contest, but then I didn't want to end up with 16 winners. Plus, arm farts aren't funny except when you're, say, 6. Or when you're a 40-year-old dad.

I thought I was ready. I'd made a fruit salad and veggie plate as healthy offerings. The brain mold jello turned out deliciously creepy. My mom donated finger shaped cookies, finger jello with layers of Halloween colors and orange slices tricked out with jello. I'd even baked vanilla bean cupakes from scratch, complete with vanila bean paste stripped right from the bean. I stuffed popcorn into hand shaped treat bags well into the night.

The Halloween themed games were all set up. We had a bean bag toss, a ball toss, a croquet game, a Nerf gun target game, a fish tank marble drop, a skeleton clothespin drop, a penny toss and a touch-and-feel mummy box, complete with semi-scary music emanating from within the box.

As this was a drop off birthday party, I'd set up a check-in table at the front gate, with prize bags, a marker for their names, name tags and a sign in sheet to gather names and phone numbers.

I was good to go!

But you can't host a party if you don't have help. Turns out, some of the moms who'd I planned to have helping were running late, very late. And my parents couldn't make it.

So for what seemed like forever and a day, there was just me, my husband (dressed in an easy to make but effective PvZ Cone Zombie costume), my good friend Nora and a sweet 10-year-old neighbor girl who is good with kids.

We worked our butts off.

Things didn't go as I'd planned. I had no one to check in kids at the front gate. I had no one to help serve food from the kitchen; in fact, much of it didn't get served at all. I had no one to man the prize table; it quickly became a "grab on your honor" table - try that with 16 little boys and see how well that works! I had no one to float around and make sure everything and everyone was engaged.

It was mayhem for a while. Well, at least from my perspective because my mind was everywhere and nowhere. The kids didn't notice a thing, they were too busy having fun. The carnival was a hit. The prizes were a hit! I was hosting one rockin' backyard party!

After what seemed like an eternity, my friend and I looked at our watches. We were ready to call it a day.

But only an hour had passed. One measley hour.

Unbelievable.

So we played the mummy game. We divided up the kids into two teams and gave them rolls of toilet paper to wrap one boy from each team like a mummy. They loved this game. When it was over, it looked as if the backyard had been TP'd by teenage girls (clean up was a breeze because we made it a contest).

The winning team received toy toilets. Not just any toy toilets, mind you, but colorful palm-sized loos with heft, all filled with slime.

If you ever host a party for a school age boy, slime toilets are the hot ticket. Make a note of that.

When there was a lull, my friend's husband Jeff saved the day and initiated a zombie walk contest. All the boys were game, with some walking like zombies and some hiding behind bushes. In the end, we had 16 ridiculously active zombies hobbling about the backyard.

Slow down, I wanted to yell, you're zombies!

So in the end, I think the party was a success. All the boys seemed to be having so much fun! They didn't know about my behind-the-scenes stress, or that the fruit salad didn't get served. They loved that they were able to grab more than their deserved winnings from the prize table. I would have stuffed their goodie bags with the leftovers anyway.

Would I do it again? Yes. I love planning parties. But I would make sure I didn't just have ghosts in the kitchen, but real help, real live flesh and blood help.

Random Acts of Zhu Benefits Sunday Friends

 

100 bloggers + 100 ZhuZhus = 10,000 smiles.

The power to make a difference lies within zhu! 

For the past year, I'd been thinking about the power of charity. I'm hoping to guide my children to adulthood with a sense of empathy and compassion. When my boys turned six a few months ago, I started to look around for an organization with a program where we could volunteer as a family.

So when the ZhuZhu Pets®, the 2010 “Toy of the Year” landed on our doorstep courtesy of Cepia, the maker of Zhu Zhu Pets, I was giddy with excitement. I'd just read in M Magazine about a local group called Sunday Friends and being selected to participate in Random Acts of Zhu couldn't have come at a more perfect time.

It just seemed like a serendipitous good fit. While there are dozens of hard working organizations needing help all throughout the year, I liked that enrolled families in Sunday Friends must earn the opportunity to shop for necessities via various educational classes. These low income families come together (on a Sunday, of course) with Sunday Friends volunteers to learn how to manage money, prepare meals using healthy ingredients and other assorted activities that will assist them in developing self-suffiency. The families can then use the tickets they earn performing these activities to shop in the Sunday Friends Treasure Chest for necessities. During the holiday season, the Treasure Chest is filled with toy and gift donations.

 

When I went to drop off the 96 Zhu Zhu Pets (4 went to my boys, 4 to Toys for Tots) at Lowell school in downtown San Jose, the Sunday Friends staff greeted me warmly and appreciatively. The large room was buzzing with volunteers and long tables piled with donated items formed aisles. It was an impressive sight.

It was a room filled with good cheer and I left there with spirits soaring. When I returned home, I filled out the application to become a Sunday Friend.

 

 

 

(piles of donated toys)                                               (Gift sorting room at Lowell school in San Jose)

We Touched Elf on the Shelf

The magic is gone.

Our nameless Elf on the Shelf no longer has the magic it takes to do his job.

He can't fly, he can't spy.

He's now nothing more than a holiday decoration, an ornament perhaps. I knew it was coming. I've written about the lies I've told on his behalf. I've let him our elf voice his concerns.

Last year, my boys' kindergarten friends mocked them, saying the elf was not real. My boys carried on with a guarded belief in the elf. But they still believed in Santa.

The Elf on the Shelf book warns children to not touch the elf.

Please do not touch me. My magic might go, and Santa won't hear all I've seen or I know.

Apparently, we are not good listeners. Last year, Grandma touched him (accidentally, of course). This year, I touched him (again, accidentally). The other day, I caught my boys giggling and whispering. Then they fessed up that they'd touched his feet and his hat!

"I touched him the other day, too, " one boy continued, "and he still moved to a different place last night!"

"So the book is wrong... we can touch him and he still has his magic!"

"I remember I touched him last year, and he still came back!" the confessions continue.

This morning, our Elf on the Shelf was piloting the At At. (An Elf in the At At... hysterical, yes?) A half hour later, he'd been dumped into a bin of bionicle parts. He's been roughed up, it seems. This time nobody fessed up.

You can blame me for placing our Elf in places where my kids could reach him, but who'd have thought they would risk losing magic and therefore, presents from Santa? Usually, when I say "don't touch" my kids don't touch. I guess the Elf proved too tempting.

So while you all are continuing with your late night hop-out-of-bed-to-move-the-elf jaunts, I'll be slumbering peacefully, knowing our Elf on the Shelf is right where he should be, every night in the same place.

Oh, and there's more Elf tragedy.

And still more: My friend Laura reports that one of her twin boys pummeled their Elf on the Shelf, Snyder.

Laura describes the scene: "I gently picked him up and placed him in Santa's special mailbox telling my son that Santa or an elf will pick him up tonight and take him back to the North Pole and sprinkle some Xmas magic on him. Next day Snyder came back all covered in bandages. My son had to have a long talk with him and apologize."

I just can't bear all the tragedy, folks!

On the bright side, we re-read the Elf on the Shelf book after my boys had touched him and they noted that the book says the elf's magic "might" go if touched, the word "might" being the key word. And so our Elf is back, this time out of reach, way up high.

This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

 

 

The Step and Repeat moves off the red carpet

I'm disappointed. Where were the paparazzi during the hundreds of times I made my glamorous (and not so glamorous) arrival at birthday partys, frat boy parties, weddings and baby showers? How many camera worthy moments were wasted posing in front of birthday presents, kegs, limos and diaper cakes when I could have been captured at my most radiant in front of a step and repeat backdrop?

You've seen the photos. You've seen the signature poses. It's the Academy Awards or the Grammy Awards and in strut the celebrities across the red carpet, stopping briefly at the step and repeat wall to give the parparrazi its fill.

There's Demi and Nicole and the Twilight cast making the art of posing look effortless. There's the Cosmo pose, the big smile pose and the usual hand on hip pose, all perfectly executed in front of a banner littered with the corporate logos of sponsors or the name of the event. It all blends together, logo and star. We watch, transfixed. It's the glamorous life. A step and repeat backdrop generates buzz.

Recently, the step and repeat backdrop has begun to move off the red carpet and into the lives of everyday people: Bat Mitzvahs, birthday parties, weddings, sorority pledge dances, to name a few.

Has celebrity culture has become so pervasive that we all harbor a desire to pretend we're celebrities? Is the step and repeat backdrop a symbol of celebrity narcissism or of our own narcissism? Earlier this year, the musician and artist Elijah Blue (son of Cher) used the step and repeat in an art installation commentary on the prolification of reality TV and the cheapening of celebrity.

Lies I Have Told on Behalf of Elf on the Shelf

He's upside down, our Elf on the Shelf. His legs jut up into the air, his head buried deep in a pile of folders, hands clasped behind his back. He looks as if he's been pushed off the edge of a cliff, bound and blindfolded. He was pushed alright, but according to our made-up-on-the-fly rules, there was no direct contact, so the push was legal (as was made up by me) and our Elf did not lose his magic. I'm too tired to turn him upright, I'm ready for him to return home. A few more hours, and he'll be back at the North Pole for another year. I'm tired of our Elf, tired of the lies.

Grandma was over last night. She spotted our Elf in a bucket of plastic dinosaurs and she...she...touched him! The kids stopped in their tracks, breathing deeply and staring at grandma.

"Grandma, you touched Elf on the Shelf, " the boys whispered, staring in disbelief. (We did not give him a name, as we were instructed to so he is not Tony or Elfie, he is Elf on the Shelf.)

Grandma stared back, not quite comprehending.

"Yes, Grandma, the Elf loses his magic if we should touch him, " I explained, smiling through clenched teeth.

Grandma squirmed and denied it, "No, I um...I touched the dino---"

"Hat!" I interrupted, "You touched his hat and that's okay because grownups are allowed to touch his clothes," I lied.

Oh, the lies I have told on behalf of Elf on the Shelf.

A Halloween Birthday at Disneyland

My twin boys will never not know that their birthday is coming. The signs will be few at first, a falling leaf, a chilly morning. Then, a dot of orange here and there, and finally, a sea of orange pumpkins and they will know. Fall is in the air, our birthday.

My boys are fall birthday boys, born in my favorite season. So what did we do to celebrate their big fifth birthday this year? We headed to Disneyland!

Looking over the Halloween at Disneyland site, I was mesmerized by the promises of a Disneyland transformed for Halloween. Disneyland is a special place when it's not a holiday, but dressed up in spookatcular style? There's nothing else like it. What a visual treat!

We'd been to Disneyland once before, in the unadorned month of May back when my boys were just three. At the time, I'd fretted over the type of stroller I should bring. This time, I'd planned to go on my twins' birthday. I'd heard that 2009 was like a twins convention at Disneyland -- but we didn't end up going on their actual birthday; it just didn't work with our schedule. The nice folks as Disneyland did treat us to a one night stay at the Grand Californian hotel and that was a gift the entire family enjoyed.

The Grand Californian made me smile from the very instant we pulled up to the front doors on a warm October Saturday. Tourists, most dressed in sunny weather attire, were bounding in and out of cars. I looked at my boys and hoped they were making a memory out of this. I love my own summer vacation in Southern California memories but mine were full of motels and neon signs, not Craftsman artistry!

In the warmly decorated lobby, my boys made themselves comfortable in front of a television showing classic Disney cartoons. They were in stitches over the classic slapstick fare of Donald Duck and Goofy - they'd never seen anything like it! It was so nice to have my boys sit still during the 15 minutes it took us to register at the front desk. A few minutes later, with our luggage stowed until our room was ready, we settled in for lunch at the hotel's Storytellers Cafe, future home to almost all our meals (let's say it was convenient and family friendly - oh, and yummy!). 

After lunch, we headed to the adjacent California Adventure Park which we told our children was really a part of Disneyland (it is, in a way...). "Where are the Pirates of the Caribbean?" they kept asking us to which we'd replied, "We don't know...let's keep walking." I suppose we could have used our tickets for two days at Disneyland rather than splitting up the parks by days but I'd wanted to take advantage of the hotel's close proximity to California Adventure and there were a couple of rides I'd really wanted to check out (Toy Story Mania, Soarin Over California, Tower of Terror). For the record, I forgot to wear the 3D glasses on Toy Story Mania until the ride was nearly over and kept wondering why puffs of air kept shooting past me. My boys didn't love Toy Story Mania and they much prefer the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters ride at Disneyland instead. Soaring Over California was amazing and exhilarating and we loved breathing in the scent of the orange groves! At night, once the kiddos were tucked into bed (a bunkbed AND a trundle bed!) at our luxurious hotel, I made my way over to the other hotel...the Tower of Terror which I LOVED, with apologies to the strangers into whose ears I SCREAMED and SCREAMED.

My boys ended their day in bubble wrap bliss. Our kind friends at Disney Resorts had sent over a fun-filled gift basket plus balloons for their birthday. My kids were thrilled to have received such a special gift! They got mouse ears and markers and autographed photos of Buzz Lightyear and Peter Pan. But imagine a big hotel bed filled from corner to corner with bubble wrap! I don't know, in my mind, that runs a pretty close second to a fun-filled day at Disneyland.

The following day was the Big Day and by that I mean, my boys both realized their recent dream of attending the Star Wars Jedi Academy. My biggest worry had been how to deal with the sibling rivalry repercussions if only one of the boys had been chosen. I'd cautioned my boys, prompting them to be prepared to be disappointed if only one or none of them had been selected but I think because we planned our outing so well, the boys did both get chosen and it was exciting for them and exciting for their parents! I'm not a Star Wars fan and everything I know about the genre is by proxy and still, I was terribly excited to see my boys become full-fledged jedis on their fifth birthday. What a gift for my 5-year-old boys!

By midday, the crowds at Disneyland were enormous, but we'd been able to already see and do so much because we'd done everything between the hours of 7am and noon, before the heat of the day, and before the groundswell of crowds. Why was it so crowded during what I'd thought was the off-season? In talking with another twin mom friend of mine who'd also battled crowds there in October, we think it's because Disney has done such a effective job of marketing a Disneyland transformed into a whimsical pumpkin patch. Indeed, what a sight it is -- if you can look beyond the crowds.

So back to the hotel we went, fleeing the heat and the throngs of people. There are three pools at the Grand Californian, all of which were easily accessible via back elevators which pretty much deposited us ten feet from our hotel room. Sweet! I'm swimsuit averse, as I have been since I was a self-conscious adolescent so I monitored my boys from the sidelines while daddy took the plunge with our boys. They tested all three pools. The first was large and inviting - and in full sun. The second was round and fully shaded and so slightly chilly. The third had a mini slide for toddlers and a longer twisty water slide for stronger swimmers. My boys did both! How better to top off a morning at Disneyland than with an afternoon at the pool? My boys were having the time of their lives. The pool supplied towels and if needed, life jackets, so we really didn't have to bring those bulky items with us.

After the pool and after a gluttonous run on the buffet at Storytellers Cafe, we pushed the limits of  exhaustion for one final evening visit to Disneyland, hoping to catch the 9pm showing of Fantasmic. But the crowds were just too immense so we didn't have the patience to stand in line for any more rides. I pined for the empty streets of Disneyland at 7am... We ended up using our single strollers that evening and just strolling about the park. By the time 8:30pm rolled around, our little birthday boys were passed out.

And with that, my children exited Disneyland in the fashion of generations of children before them, collapsed in utter exhaustion!

Thank you Disneyland and Disneyland resorts. We can't wait to go back!

Original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

Elf on the Shelf

Elf on the Shelf here. Just back from a seasonal gig at some crazy Silicon Valley house. I had to monitor two boys, age 4 - twins! The mom picked me up as an impulse buy at her neighborhood toy store. It was a rocky start from the moment she lifted me out of my tidy and quiet little box. She said, "He's so tiny. I thought he'd be bigger."

Hello? I'm an elf, a person of diminutive stature. What was she expecting, a Santa sized elf? Man!

Back at her home, I toppled from the various places she tried to put me. I wanted to scream, Try the shelf! I'm Elf on the Shelf, remember? That first night, I ended up at the top of the Christmas tree from which the view was great except that my eyes are permanently glancing to the right. I need to look like I'm studying the children and not the boring ceiling. Fortunately, it was night time when I first met the children and nobody noticed my wayward gaze. They stared up at me as if I were real. One of them snapped my picture.

The following day, the mom moved me to the top of a heavy picture frame. Again, I had a great view but my eyes were fixated on the window. It hardly gives me credibility with children if I can't make eye contact with them. I made a mental note to stop by Santa's workshop and ask for some posable eyes. Wonder if that would creep the children out if I could follow them with my eyes?

One of the boys stood on tiptoe to get a better look at me. Then he insulted me by asking if I were "just a toy." While I was reeling from that remark, the other boy hurled another one by asking why I didn't have feet or shoes. (Actually, I hadn't noticed and now it does bother me a little.) The mom didn't even bother to make up a story. Do you know what she did? She agreed. She told her son he was right and that it was strange that I didn't have feet. Then she told her Twitter friends about me, the shoeless elf, and a friend wisely replied that elves don't need shoes because they fly! It's obvious my household did not read my book or they would have remembered I fly to the North Pole while the children are sleeping to report on good and bad behavior. I don't need shoes to fly, now do I?

I then spent the next few nights moving all about the house. The mom insisted upon placing me out of reach even though children know that if they touch me, I lose my magic. She even tried placing me atop the vanity mirror in the bathroom but couldn't get me to stay still and moved me out of there, thank God. There was one night when I worried I wouldn't be moved at all until the mom suddenly remembered and jumped out of bed to find me a new spot at 3 in the morning.

A couple of times, I was day dreaming when I heard my name being screamed. The mom was a little upset, "The Elf saw that! He'll tell Santa and you'll get no presents!" Wow - someone was really having naughty behavior that day and I almost didn't catch it.

Sometimes the mother couldn't get the story straight and said, "Santa is watching." Well, that's sort of true. He's watching, but only with the help of the elf minions who work down in the trenches. Without us, Santa wouldn't know a thing. He'd give presents to the naughty and coal to the nice if it weren't for us.

There was one day when the boys were being particularly naughty and I started to feel sorry for the mother. She tries with them, she really does but sometimes those boys are just out of control. I noticed that the mom says things in desperation, trying to evoke good behavior. I almost laughed when she told her kids that not only was I watching, but so, too, were Santa, Santa's cameras, the Grinch, the Gruffalo (who the heck is he?) and someone called karma. As if we all work as a team - yeah, right. I've never even met the Grinch.

I was kept busy writing down names on my list. Both boys leaped from the naughty column to the nice column and back again. On days when the boys were cranky from hunger or fatigue, my presence would only result in a temporary reform in their behavior. Sometimes, the boys would look up at me, consider their actions and go right back to doing what it was they weren't supposed to be doing. Other times, especially in the freshness of morning, the boys would immediately halt the offending behavior and apologize with sincerity.

The best part of the day was always in the morning when the children would wake up and come looking for me. I almost giggled out loud from my perch next to the children's beds when they ran out of the room without noticing me. I would play hide-n-go seek all day if I could.

I hitched a ride back to the North Pole with Santa when he came to bring presents to the boys I'd been monitoring. While I'd love to boast that my presence greatly improved behavior, I'll admit that I only helped things out some of the time. Then why did Santa come? Well, I actually grew to love the little boys in my temporary home and so I, um, cheated. I used a pencil when making my lists and let's just say I did a bit of erasing while on the job. Every child deserves presents.

Original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles. Akemi intends to go to Michaels to pick up some little shoes and some stick on googly eyes for the elf when he returns before Christmas next year.

To the Kiosk Vendors of Valley Fair

They see me coming. I'm the target. I know it. I brace myself. Here it comes, here it comes...

"Can I talk to you for just one moment?"

"Hello, I have some nice organic soap for you..."

"Miss! Miss! MISS!"

I whisk my cell phone out of my pocket and pretend to talk, ignoring the pleas for my attention.

I will not talk to you for a moment.
I do not want to buy some nice organic soap.
I will not look your way, but thank you for calling me Miss!

To the kiosk vendors of Valley Fair:  Please let me be!

Thank You for Thanking Me

I forgot to thank my grandma for the thank you card. My mom passed along the inquiry, "If you received it, Akemi, please just call her and tell her you received it."

"But Mom!" I want to whine, but I suppress the adolescent in me and say instead, "OK, sure."

Since my grandma is thanking me for a gift I gave to her, it's sort of like I'm thanking her for thanking me. My mother and grandmother are caught in an unending circle of politesse. I do get it - my very sweet grandma just wants to know if her handwritten thank you note has made it safely into my mail box, and then into my hands. I know I should make the courtesy call, but sometimes, especially now that I have kids, I forget.

I make the call.

"Thank you for the thank you card,"  I gush to my delighted grandma.