Consuela

Aunt Krystal sent Kate her very own Elf on the Shelf. She arrived just before December started so she could make her first appearance on December 1st. If you are unfamiliar with the Elf on the Shelf, basically it's a somewhat creepy looking little doll that may or may not kill you during the night. You tell your children that the elf is watching them each day and returning to the North Pole every night to report their behavior to Santa who then in turn will decide if you are a good or bad girl or boy. The elf returns each morning via their magic and is always in a different place when she comes back. For the hard core elf parents, the elves are supposed to be somewhat mischievous so you can have them "get into" stuff and basically make a mess. Considering that I'm the one who not only has to make the mess but then clean it up again, our elf is just going to be lazy and sit around staring at us each day. Oh, and part of the game is that you cannot touch the elf or she will lose her magic and ability to return to the North Pole.

True story - one of my friends actually wrapped her living room in toilet paper the other day and blamed it on the elf. Not even making that up.

So...when your elf arrives you are supposed to name him or her. Our elf is a girl, so we were sitting around trying to decide on her name together. Kate typically names everything Kate so I was hoping to avoid that. I was throwing out all kinds of cute names like Peppermint or Holly or Jingle Bell....and Kate rejected each one. Nick chimed in and said "How about Consuela?" and Kate happily agreed that her name was Consuela. Way to go Nick. So we have a hispanic elf that Kate calls "Bu-sill-a" because Consuela just doesn't come out of her mouth.

I'm not going to lie - Consuela is creepy. If I fail to wake up one morning because she ran down the hall on her tiny little felt legs and kills me in my sleep, it was nice knowing you all.