Meet CoCo Glitterfluff

The Elf named herself CoCo Silverfluff

We are now a bigger family. Welcome to CoCo Silverfluff, the Elf on the Shelf we adopted.

I caved.

I have a very persistent and persuasive eight-year-old. 

My Little One asked me, "Why aren't we allowed to have an Elf on the Shelf again, Mommy?".

I explain to her my theory.  

She rebuts with a list of friends whom are nice, sweet friends, that have an Elf. So I told her, "Because after three years, you are still asking for one, and you have made a strong case for taking care of one, I'll do some reading and re-consider my stance. I'm not saying 'yes', but I'm not saying 'no' either."

About once a week since, she would check in and ask if I had made a decision yet. I hadn't, but I was doing some research. I found blogs and Pinterest pages of "nice" elves, or "kindness" ideas. I don't like the elves that make messes or cause mischief, because I think that re-enforces bad behavior (I know, it's crazy extreme. I KNOW!). Anyway, I decided to green light the elf adoption.

Fast forward to the week of Thanksgiving, and MLO asked me if I had made a decision. I told her I had indeed decided to move forward with an adoption. She was DELIGHTED! Then it became a daily discussion of arrival status. 

This morning, a package was on the dining room table with MLO's name on it. MLO opened it and I was surprised to see her so patient about it. She carefully untaped the paper from all the sides, peeled back the tape from the box opening. She smiled and said, "A box! I got a box! I hope there's a smaller box inside!" 

I replied, "You want smaller and smaller boxes like those Russian nesting dolls???".

"Yeah!" she exclaimed.

She opened the flaps of the cardboard box, saw a letter, pulled out the letter ONLY, closed the flaps and started reading the letter - TO HERSELF, QUIETLY. I'm in suspense! What does it say?! What's inside the box?! TELL ME!!!

"What are you reading?"

"It's a letter."

"Well read it to me!"

"I'm going to read it myself, quietly, first."

This chick is PAY-SHINT!

So she read the letter, and slowly opened the box. She pulled a piece of tissue paper that revealed *Angels in Heaven Chorale song* THE Elf!

MLO was careful not to touch the elf, lest the elf loses her magic. The accompanying book is under the elf, so she carefully pulled it out and I reached for the letter.

There are a short moments of shy smiles and sweet faces. I can see MLO's eyes are happy. She was pretty low-key considering the three year build-up to this moment. 

I left the table and started to wash dishes while MLO ate breakfast. She was quiet, contemplative. Then she turned around to face me and said, "mommy, I know it doesn't show, but I have lots of excited screaming going on in my mind right now".  Adorable. :)

The letter tasked MLO with naming the elf, which turned out to be quite a topic of discussion. MLO decided she wanted the elf to name herself and made a sign for her to fill in her name while MLO was at school. We got home from school, and the line for the name was still blank.  While we were waiting for Boa to be dismissed from school, we found an elf name generator app; "CoCo Silverfluff" was a result returned when MLO typed in her own name. And thus, CoCo was named, and shall be forever so. 

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Merry Christmas, everyone!