The Situation with the Elves

Adding to the complication with DNA and Santa's elves ...

Along with a few typical items a kid would ask Santa for Christmas, she has come up with a couple that can not be found in a store, on Etsy, Ebay, or even by massive searches using multiple key phrases within our all encompassing mother: google. It's going to take a little creativity on Santa's part to fulfill her item specifications.

I asked her to sit down and make a list for Santa, I gave her a catalog of toys and pulled up a few stores on the interwebs to browse then indicate choices on the hello kitty notebook paper she had prepared for the task. She bulleted a few from the Toys R Us catalog but then she stopped short.
"Mom?"
me: "Yes? How's your list coming?"
her: "Well, I have a problem. I think that Santa might get confused by one of the presents I want."
me: "How so?"
her: "I want a guinea pig that is motorized. You know, that has wheels and moves around on the floor. But, I'm worried that Santa will think I want a ZuZu pet!"
me: "Well, find it online and we'll print it. Then we can put it with the letter!"
her: "It's not online mom. It's something the elves will have to make for me in their workshop!"

*Great. Of course my kid wants toys that have to be built to spec.

her: "And I want a Coraline with a raincoat, but I don't want the button eyes, I want the regular eyes. She needs to not be a tiny plastic statue that you have to keep on a shelf, She needs to be big and not have a cloth face!"

*After she went to bed, I searched and searched for said Coraline. I found the figurines she was talking about not wanting. I found some homemade dolls folks have posted in their Etsy stores. Some were cool, but I'm not willing to spend $70.00! Not to mention they had fabric faces. Usually I'd find a way to make a doll, but I gotta tell ya, I just don't have the strength this year. I can see it now, molding a Coraline face out of some kind of resin - and ending up with something that looks more like hap-hazard combination of Elijah Wood and the Dutch Boy.

My solution was to have the 'elves' draw a portrait of Coraline. They even signed it "North Pole". On the back, Santa made sure to address it himself. In hind-sight, I find it hard to picture Santa penning anything in glitter, ooops. I guess I'll rely on the old adage of  "it's the effort and thought that counts"....right?

"Coraline in her raincoat" for: Salem    From: The Elves of the North Pole

Santa goes a little nuts with the glitter pen.