Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one. -Dr. Seuss: Dear Santa, I can explain...

Heehee! No explaining needed at the McHam house - Not right now anyway! Am thinking Jolly may just take up permanent residency here as a reminder to stay on the Nice List all year long! He's like our own personal little angel, reminding us that "someone" is watching. Last year I was so conflicted about wanting to center everything Christmas around the true meaning of the season - Jesus's birth. This year I've had so much more peace about it all - Praises! And really, it all comes back to Jesus anyway. Like Jolly. I tell the boys that if Jesus hadn't been born, Jolly and Santa wouldn't even have jobs. They'd probably be working in some toy factory. And poor Jolly, with his obvious height problems - He might even get teased. So sad. Thank goodness Jesus was born.

Jolly continues to love sugar. We are working on that. Sweet Jolly. On this night he poured sugar all over the kitchen table so he could drive his train through it like snow. It made quite a mess but everyone had a good time!

The next night Jolly had fun with our dry erase marker again. Tristan was not as impressed. He wanted to clean this up pretty quickly but - bless him - he held back and tried to enjoy it.

I have heard of other elves toilet papering people's Christmas trees. I shudder to think what my oldest son would think if that happened at our house!

The next day we found these awesome snow globes at Wal-Mart. We didn't have time to decorate them ourselves and even discussed putting out a note for Jolly specifically telling him not to mess with them. I told the boys there was just no way he was going to be able to pass that up! Unfortunately we forgot our letter.... and we were right! He "borrowed" my camera, flew to the North Pole, and apparently had a fellow elf take his picture! The boys could hardly believe I wasn't mad at Jolly for using my camera. NOBODY is allowed to touch it - not even Daddy! But I told them I'd make a special concession for Jolly... Just this once!

He does look awfully magical doesn't he?

Jolly must've been feeling pretty crafty after his snowglobe trick. The next night he made accordian elves out of the boys' pictures. I think these may just have to stay up for a while!

His note says "I just like smiling. Smiling's my favorite!" It was in response to Tristan's question about why he's always smiling... and references one of Jolly's favorite movies, "Elf." He also said, "PS I CAN talk to grown ups!" which was another question Tristan had for him.