Mischievous Elf

Had a fabulous day today.   A colleague and I worked  with some of our community partners and helped them host a Christmas party for the children.

Each child was fed, had a visit to Santa and received a selection box off him, and also got a gift - everything was donated by local businesses  

I was Santa's official photographer for the event and loved every minute.  I get so used to  people launching in to great long list of things they would like for Christmas.  It was quite humbling to hear a beautiful little girl of about five state that she would dearly love a (singular) bath bomb!!!     I also spotted that a young man of about 12 had not collected a gift.  He has given his lucky ticket to his younger brother so he could have two.

These little ones were a great reminder of what the Christmas spirit should be about.  I had several lumps in my throat as their little eyes lit up whilst they spoke to Santa.  One little family didn't think it was enough to just thank Santa, they all sang to us.  It was the sweetest rendition  of "We wish you a merry Christmas" I have ever heard.  Not one child was hurried, they had as much time with Santa as they wanted.  It made it a very long but as I said, fabulous day.

We did find a little time  for some mischief though.  I was Mrs Christmas and Rachel an elf -  We wanted to do an elf on the shelf 12 days of Christmas, and were encouraged to do so by the other volunteers - we thought the batter of it.   OK, no we didn't - we ran out of time!