From Letters to My Dearest Garden to Elf Boots

If you use Instagram, you may have seen my letters to My Dearest Garden. I write one every few days or so in between posting a picture.

So my grid looks like a checkerboard. Letter, picture, letter, picture, letter… my friend and co-podcaster Dee once told me that Instagram grids that make a pattern are more pleasing to the eye.

Letter, picture, letter, picture, letter…

There isn’t room to write too much in each letter, and I try to make it something real in the garden that has happened. However I will confess that yesterday, when I wrote and posted the above letter, I had grand plans that all that would happen.

Turns out, I only had time to put up the outdoor lights. Maybe that’s because I did pause to remove some suckers growing in a star magnolia (Magnolia stellata), which needed to be done before I draped a strand or two of lights carefully over its branches.

And I had to test all the strands of lights from last year, only to find that of six or seven spools, only one still worked. ONE.

Good thing I anticipated that and bought five new spools of lights a few weeks ago.

(I must be buying cheap lights! And though I do searches and read articles about how to repair strands of LED lights, it all seems time-consuming. So new lights it is!)

Anyway, back to Instagram.

By posting a pattern like that, it makes me pause and not post everything To use it with purpose. Picture, letter, picture, letter…

Today is a letter day for Instagram because yesterday I posted a letter and then this picture.

When I saw these little boots on Thanksgiving day, I asked my sister, “Do those boots belong to one of Santa’s elves?” She said they belonged to her granddaughter. I was and remain skeptical. Those look like boots Santa’s elves would wear!

I posted that picture on Instagram and two people agree with me. Those boots were left by one of Santa’s elves!

How about a new game to replace that elf who comes and sits on a shelf and then moves around the house every day spying on kids and reporting back to the North Pole? Creepy.

Switch it up with Elf Boots!

Put a pair of Elf Boots out somewhere in the house.

When you see the Elf Boots, point them out to the kids, and explain they were left by an elf but that the elves came not to spy on the children but to help with cleaning and decorating the house.

Then every night, clean or decorate something, and leave the Elf Boots nearby.

In the morning, the kids try to find the boots and figure out what got cleaned or decorated.

Now here’s a choice to make.

You can just make it a fun game for the kids to foot the Elf Boots in the morning and thus see and understand how much cleaning and decorating takes place before Christmas…

OR

You can explain that the less the elves have to do to help, the more time they can spend on making toys so that every girl and boy gets one on Christmas. Then get the kids to help with cleaning and decorating. On those days when they’ve been most helpful, you don’t need to put the Elf Boots out somewhere overnight. You can hide them and tell the kids that the elves didn’t visit because they did the work the elves would have done! Good children!

Oh wait, my little Elf Boots game turned into a secret way for kids to be more helpful around the holidays.

Hmmm… good idea, bad idea? Creepy idea?

Oh dear, from Instagram to broken lights to Elf Boots…

What a rambling mess this post is.

Thanks for reading to the end anyway, and do let me know your thoughts about Elf Boots!

(After thought, added after the email about this post went out. The good thing about Elf Boots is you don’t need to buy a pair of little boots to set out. Just find some old boots that your kids have worn out or forgotten about and use them. If they recognize the boots, just tell them that you must have donated them and the elf got them from the donation pile, and isn’t it wonderful how their boots are now an elf’s boot?)