The list of things that have kept me away... The packing, the unpacking. The sweet potato casserole, the laundry that we accumulated over eight solid days. The Disney Dream, the sand. The smell of new puppy breath.
Our November was busy and magical and full of reasons to be thankful and amongst it all, Oscar, our elf came back to hang with us until Santa Claus comes to town.
He hijacked one of our suitcases and sailed all the way to the Bahamas with us. Our first night at sea, he made a monkey out of towels, clipped him to a coat hanger, hung him from the wall of curtains in our room then tucked himself into Jake's bed so that when he pulled back the covers to go to sleep he'd find him. The second night, he filled our room with every kind of animal you would find in a circus (made of towels) and became their ringmaster. And while we ate our last dinner in the Animator's Palette, he ate all of the chocolates left for us except for one piece. He left that one laying on the dog's paw (yep...towels) so we'd all think it was his fault. We're sooo much smarter than that, Oscar, and Johann, if you're reading this, you are a magic maker, Friend. We'll never forget it.
Right after our cruise ended, we spent three days at Disney Orlando - two shopping and one at the parks (We decided to save three days of our four-day passes and go back when school's out for the Summer.). Oscar snuck into my bag the day we park-hopped, and while Jim and Jake were screaming it up in the Tower of Terror, he did the rest of Hollywood Studios like any magic elf should. I even found him sliding in Muppetsville and this picture of him on my camera. wink wink.
Since we've been home, he's done things like roll down our stairs inside a roll of toilet paper. He took a bath in a sink full of brownie-flavored marshmallows, and he wrote "Oscar was here!" on the boy's bathroom mirror with a tube of lipstick.
The magic is here, Y'all! I LIVE for this time of year!
