16 Weeks Until Christmas

16 weeks until Christmas, gang! It’s getting exciting here.

Countdown to Christmas

I’ve spent this week over at the Wrapping Department, talking with Elf Wally. My ears hurt. Elf Wally can talk FAST. I think that’s why he got that job over there.

Everything is so speedy over there. I don’t think I could ever work in that department.

First of all, they do beautiful work. Best Christmas wrappers in the world work there.

There’s this lady there – Elf Lydia – who is as old as my grandma. She has a cane and she is kinda bent over as she walks. But she sits on this high stool at a table and makes bows all day long. I was assigned to talk with her and have her teach me a little bit about bow making.

I pulled up a stool at her station and was just getting ready to introduce myself but before I got a word out she was chattering. She’s just like Wally – talks a mile a minute, doesn’t even stop to breathe.

She said:

“Hihoney,nicetomeetya.We’llstartwithwhatIcallatwinklestarbowitsverypopularandsomepeoplethinkitiscomplexbutreallyitsveryeasyanditwasinventedlongbeforeevenIwasbornsoit’saclassicandwillnevergooutofstylethetwinklepartdoesn’thaveanything todowithwhatitlookslikeithastodowithsingingtwinkletwinklelittlestarasyoumakeit.”

And just like that she started singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Fast. Like really really really fast. Her fingers flew so fast I could not see a thing she was doing. Seconds later this perfect, beautiful bow popped out of her fingers.

“Now you try,” she said. Yeah. Right.

Elf Lydia is a peach, let me tell ya. She’s been making bows for 86 years. “They tried to put me in different departments at different times. But I have said no every time. I’m no old lady, I don’t need to be put on the cookie line.”

Elf Lydia is in the Christmas Wrapping Hall of Fame. I did not even know there was such a thing. She is a legend in the Wrapping Department and I can certainly see why.

She is teaching me to be more suspicious of older elves. They are sneaky smart and sneaky fast. You think they are slow and don’t know things and you end up being wrong about that all the time.

Santa has a lot of older elves who work for him. I’m going to talk to him about that because I see them everywhere I go.

I know I’m a kid. And I am new to the North Pole. But there are a lot of great elves here like Lydia. I want to know more of them.

Toodles.

Elf Trixie