The Magic of Christmas

We started a tradition last year with the kids using the Elf on the Shelf. For those of you that aren’t familiar with this, a magical elf comes to live at your house prior to Christmas. His job is to watch how you act during the day and each night he magically returns to the North Pole to give a report to Santa on how you were that day. We named our little visitor Scout since that is basically his job. Each morning, the kids wake up to find Scout magically moved to a new location in the house. One rule about Santa’s elves is that they are not allowed to be touched or else they may lose their magic and can’t return to the North Pole to provide Santa the daily update.
Here’s where the story gets interesting. Yesterday, we had a cleaning service in to do a deep clean on the house. The cleaning lady was working through the family room while Jackson was at school and dusted the shelf that Scout was sitting on. Well, she moved Scout to the other side of the shelf instead of putting him back in the same spot. It wasn’t more than 5 minutes after Jackson came home from school that he realized that Scout had been moved. He started to investigate as to how Scout moved. After talking to Kelli, me and Delaney, he came to the conclusion that the cleaning lady was the culprit. Then the panic settled in as he realized that someone had touched Scout and he may have lost his magic. Kelli and I reassured him that we were sure he was fine because the cleaning lady didn’t know the rules.

Fast forward to prayers that night with Jackson… Kelli was out shopping and the girls were already in bed. Jackson and I did prayers and after the standard blessing on our family and our house and being thankful for the invention of Legos, Jackson then says the following. “Bless Scout that his magic won’t be gone and that he can go back to Santa and tell him that we were good and that he can fly back here and be okay.” As I bit my tongue and giggled a little, he finished his prayer. I smiled at him afterwards and then he said as he measured a small distance between his thumb and pointer finger, “Maybe Jesus will give him a little bit of magic back so he can make it to Santa and back.” I responded “Well, Jesus doesn’t really use magic, but I’m sure Scout will be here in the morning.” I never realized the balance I’d have to deal with between gospel doctrine and Santa Claus. Better to strike the balance than to dash the imagination and hopes of an 8 year old completely wrapped up in the magic of Christmas—it’s too much fun.