13 Weeks Until Christmas

Hi gang! There are just 13 weeks to go now until Christmas and I cannot tell you how busy things are here. It’s like someone stepped on the gas and everything now is hopping at full speed.

As Elves Frank and Crash shared in the news yesterday the Elf Parade Committee met this week. That’s a thing Mrs. Claus is involved with and she’s really trying to get control of some things.

I know Elf Crash joked about it a little bit but really the thing about the mud flaps on his trike are a real deal. Mrs. Claus wants to make sure the parade is fun for everyone, including the spectators.

So she is imposing new rules. For example, there will not be any throwing of things from the parade floats this year. That got out of hand a little bit. People were throwing candy and little bags of nuts and things into the crowd and that was ok for a few years. It made people really anticipate certain floats when they came by.

But a few folks took it too far. Like the elves from Kringle Dairy and their “eggnog bombs” that were a big hit but they became something of a danger. They were just little frozen cartons of Elf Eggnog and the crowd loved them but those little cartons have sharp corners on them and one elf in the crowd got bruised on the shoulder when she didn’t see it come flying her way.

Mrs. Claus says that kind of thing has to stop.

A group of elves on the committee tried to get Mrs. Claus to modify that a little bit by having guidelines of what could be thrown – candy, versus heavier things like, well, eggnog. But Mrs. Claus said nothing should ever be thrown into a crowd.

But she did allow for parade participants to walk into the crowd to hand things out. I think the people in the crowd are going to love this.

For example, Elf Harriet over in the Wrapping Department is planning to have a parade float that looks like a big giant present. She plans to have elves pop out of the float and into the crowd to hand out gift tags.

Mrs. Claus sent out a memo to the parade committee praising this idea, saying that Elf Harriet and her team had the “proper spirit” of the parade in mind when coming up with this plan.

Mrs. Claus is also personally approving all the parade float designs and costumes. Things that flash, make noise or have limited animation are good. Things that squirt water, emit foul odors or have the intent to scare or surprise will not be approved.

Mrs. Claus had to remind some parade participants that Halloween is over in October and that the Elf Parade should be all about the merriment of Christmas.

There was one announcement we were not expecting for the parade. Mrs. Claus says that she and Santa will have a float in the parade this year and will bring up the rear of the procession in what she calls a “special surprise”.

This is a first. Normally Santa and Mrs. Claus are on the reviewing stand.

Of course, this has everyone really anticipating this year’s parade. In fact, because Santa and Mrs. Claus are in the parade, some elves are rethinking their plans. Some want to “do better” just because Santa will be in the parade with them. In fact, there’s something of a competition now to be the float in the parade that is just in front of Santa and Mrs. Claus.

With the exception of the North Pole High School Marching Band – which has 350 members – and the Lion’s Club Kazoo Orchestra (another 200 “musicians”) – nobody knows what order they will be in the parade. Some want to be at the front of the parade, others want to be at the rear.

Mrs. Claus says nobody finds out until they start gathering on Thanksgiving Day after the Turkey Bowl over at Gingerbread Field. They start their march from over there and come right up the big hill on Main Street of North Pole Village.

There are a couple of more meetings of the parade committee yet to happen. We expect more changes and likely more debate about the whole thing in the weeks ahead.

It’s a big tradition and you should think about participating in the Elf Parade from where you are.

Ta-ta for now!