Another successful season has come and gone and elves all over the North Pole were out celebrating at Santa’s end-of-season party. Late into the day, two of our most mischievous makers were seen sobbing over a cup of candy cane cocoa and gingerbread cookies. Sources say these two were temporarily placed at the same home all season, and had grown quite close.
When asked about their situation, Santa boomed, “Ho, ho, ho…Nim and Lil grew close over this holiday season. We’ll see what we can do to help them keep in touch.”
When further pressed, Santa just smiled with a twinkle and a wink.
Nim was giddy with excitement. He missed Lil of course, but he had the whole house to himself and could do whatever he wanted to do.
For example, Lil had squashed his idea of decorating the tree with the kid’s undies.
“Oh Nim, we can’t do that! The girls would be so embarrassed!”
Nim chuckled. He wasn’t so concerned with embarrassing the boys.
Lil had also been against making too big of a mess.
For example, she did not like the idea of making snow angels in flour.
“Nim, we’ll make a bigger mess than normal and the moms will be so mad!”
Well, since it was the last night, Nim was counting on the holiday spirit to soften tempers.
He found the flour canister and spent some time diving in and out, making a HUGE wreck of the counter.
Rather than carrying the canister to the table, as he could have done with a little pixie dust, Nim scooped up handfuls and flew the flour over to the kitchen table. With each trip, he left a path of “snow” on the floor.
After he had enough flour on the table, he rolled around in it and made a flour angel, making more of a mess on the chair.
Covered in white powder, he soared to the top of the cabinets to settle in until morning.
He couldn’t help but think how shocked Lil would be when he told her about his last bit of mischief. She would probably laugh and be glad she hadn’t been there to witness Joe’s mom’s reaction to the mess. Or his dad’s.
He couldn’t wait to tell her all about it over hot cocoa at the Candy Cane Cafe.
The Gals
Lil was still a little sad that she wouldn’t be making mischief with Nim. She flew into the kitchen of the strange new house and landed with a thud on the counter.
One look at the living room had her spirits soaring. Barbie dolls were scattered across the couch. Finally, a chance to play dress-up!
Sure, Lil enjoyed her time with Nim. They’d planned some great pranks together. But…the boys’ house was sadly lacking in dolls.
“We could dress up the Power Rangers,” Nim once offered.
“What would they dress up in?” Lil had asked.
“Coffee filter skirts?”
At this house, there were Barbie clothes, doll clothes, shoes, purses…everything she needed to play dress-up.
So Lil played with the Barbies for a long time, only stopping when the sun started to rise.
Then, she soared over to the window ledge above the kitchen sink and built a Jenga block wall, pelting Barbie with mini marshmallows until she heard the girls coming down the stairs.
Tonight, Santa would come to deliver presents (or coal) and all the scout elves would fly back to the North Pole to celebrate this year and prepare for next year.
Lil and Nim took the long way back from the North Pole. They were feeling a bit blue. Only two more nights and they wouldn’t see the kids until next year.
And…they only had one more night together.
The girls were going to their grandma’s house and staying through Christmas day. The news had been a blow to Nim and Lil as they’d had grand plans for the last night of the season.
“I can’t believe that we will be in separate houses tomorrow night!” Lil sadly exclaimed.
“I know,” said Nim gloomily.
They’d had so much fun with Issabella, Cheyenne, Joe and Jake. Sure, they’d had some close calls like the time Joe had been placedon the naughty list for not listening to his mom and dad.
And Lil had been in tears at having to remind the girls to be good, or they too would be put on the naughty list.
But…they’d had a blast planning all the shenanigans.
One of their favorites was when they had wrapped the cabinets in Christmas paper and thrown ribbon curls all over the house.
They’d laughed until their sides hurt after they’d made a fantastic mess with a can of spray snow.
And who could forget the candy cane zip lines! The kids had such a ball finding their candy canes.
Oh the fun they had had this season!
“Let’s do something fun for the kids tonight!” Lil exclaimed.
“Maybe we can leave something that they can do together. Like a gingerbread house.” Nim said.
“Oh everybody leaves a gingerbread house,” mused Lil.
“We could make sugar cookies for them to decorate together.”
“Maybe,” said Lil.
They landed lightly on the couch and looked around. Every night, something new appeared in the living room or kitchen. The family was so busy baking, wrapping and decorating that the counters were covered in paper and flour.
Nim, seeing a red and green box, soared off the couch and came up spinning holding a kit for making foam puppets.
“Oh how perfect!” Lil squealed.
They pulled out all of the parts and pieces, getting yarn and googly eyes everywhere.
By the time they were done making one foam penguin puppet, Lil had tangled herself in yarn and Nim had a sparkly red bow firmly attached to his nose.
Laughing, they jotted down a quick note to the kids.
Time to make merry puppets! We’ll teach you how to sew Thread the needle, it’s not hard And then get set to go!
A penguin or a Santa? A snowman or a deer? Pick a color, thread the yarn and spread some Christmas cheer!
-Nim and Lil
After they’d made the puppet, they spent some time whirling yarn around the kitchen and living room. When they were breathless and the sun was starting to rise, they picked their posts for the day.
Lil, hung from a fly swatter above the sink. It was the perfect spot to watch the girls and boys build their puppets.
And Nim, feeling a bit sneaky, climbed into the UNO Moo game tucked behind two santas and poked his head out the barn door.
They were happy knowing how much fun the kids would have making their puppets together.
And happy to have spent their last night together laughing and having a blast.
Last night had been full of danger, stress and then…relief.
Nim and Lil almost didn’t make it back to homebase before the kids woke up. They’d had to think quickly and so spent a rather chilly day stuck outside peeking in at their charges.
Their fate was better than some of their fellow scouts. Everyone was buzzing about the missing elves: Cheeky and Filbert. A search party was out scouring the streets, but it was looking grim.
“I hope they’re found,” Lil said, breaking the silence.
Nim (of course) agreed with her, but privately, he couldn’t help thinking that it was only a matter of time before those two would find an excuse to go AWOL from their scout elf duties.
Filbert and Cheeky had met at Scout School. They’d both been sent to Pixie Prison for causing trouble beyond the usual elfin pranks.
Cheeky had set off a glitter bomb in the bathroom…knowing full well that Mr. Zart, the principal, was in there.
Filbert had replaced Mrs. Tiddlywinks morning cup of chocolate with…well, let’s just say that student elves were banned from the stables after that.
“Maybe it’s just another one of their pranks. After all, their houses are a lot closer to the North Pole than ours, and we made it back.”
Neither Nim nor Lil were feeling very impish, so it took some time for them to determine what to do.
Nim suddenly darted down to the shoe pile next to the breakfast bar and started to place the pairs in a line.
“What are you doing?” asked Lil.
“Helping!” said Nim.
“Helping?” Lil said, puzzled.
“Yes, helping. We’ll pair up all the shoes and put them in a line around the living room. Everyone is always trying to find their shoes.”
“That’s right!” Lil agreed. “The other day I saw Jake go out with a different shoe on each foot. I let a giggle escape. I think his mom heard it, because she looked up at me for a few seconds.”
They spent a long time pairing up all the shoes and snaking them around the living room.
After they were done, they had time to play. They got a little carried away making train noises.
“Chug-a-chug-a Chug-a-chug-a.”
“Choo Choo!”
So carried away, that Charlie the Dog, barked and growled, threatening to wake the whole house.
“We’d better get in place,” Nim whispered. Nim and Lil hung upside down in the wine rack and watched, thinking how pleased the moms would be with their latest trick.
Nim and Lil were singing Christmas carols with the other scout elves as they waited for the night’s pep talk from the Big Guy.
All of the elves were in the same happy and excited mood.
They sang Jingle Bells then moved on to Deck the Halls.
They started to sing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, but quickly stopped at a dark look from the stables.
Dasher and Prancer were not amused. It was well-known at the North Pole how Santa’s reindeer felt about that song.
“It’s getting kind of early,” said Flurry. “Do you think he’s coming?”
A low murmur started as the other elves noticed the time. Where was Santa?
They were just about to start a round of The Twelve Days of Christmas when a breathless Mrs. Claus came barrelling out of the house.
“Oh dear!” she cried. “I’m afraid Santa is…not well. You see, he, well…he’s been tricked!”
The elves all looked at each other in horror. Santa tricked? Who would do such a thing?
“Oh, he’ll be fair as frost in the morning,” she said, seeing the worry on their faces. “But he won’t be able to come out to talk with you tonight, and it is already getting early so you had all better get going!”
“But Mrs. C, what happened to Santa?” asked Dizzy.
“A naughty elf switched his chocolate milk with chocolate eggnog,” she said, trying desperately not to laugh out loud. “He had three cups, and you all know that he only has eggnog after all the presents have been delivered. And even then, he only has one glass!”
With a barely hidden twinkle in her eyes, she shooed the elves on their way and flounced back into the house to care for poor Santa.
After she had gone, the merriment of the singing turned into panic as all of the elves scrambled to reach their houses before morning. If they didn’t get there before their kids woke up, they would be locked out for the day.
The last elf to get locked out, Jinx, had never been heard from again. Once or twice, a crazy old elf claimed to have seen Jinx walking through the Candy Cane Forest, but only the youngest of elves believed these stories were true.
Nim and Lil were streaming through the clouds as fast as they possibly could when the sun started to rise. They were still a few miles from their destination when it peeked over the horizon.
They gave each other a worried glance as they pushed for more speed, but when they saw the kitchen light on at the house, they knew they were too late.
The kids were already up.
They carefully peeked through the kitchen window above the sink. Seeing no movement, they opened it slightly and tried to squeeze in head first. The tip of Nim’s hat was on the window sill when Lil panicked and slammed the window down.
“My hat!” whisper-yelled Nim pointing to where it had fallen, inside the ledge.
“Sorry,” Lil said. “I thought I heard something.”
“I give up,” said Nim, rather dramatically. “We’ll be doomed to wander the Candy Cane Forest forever just like Jinx!”
“Oh stop it, Nim,” Lil scolded. ‘We’ll just have to improvise.”
And so they did.
Nim smiled sheepishly at Lil once they were in place.
“Sorry for panicking back there. Not sure what got into me.”
Lil just shook her head, her eyes dancing and waited for the kids to find them.
Joe was bummed. It hadn’t snowed yet and it was almost Christmas.
Even more than that, his birthday was the next day.
“I want it to snow for my birthday,” he grumbled sadly.
“There’s still time,” Cheyenne said. “It could snow tomorrow!”
Joe looked doubtfully at the sunny, crisp blue sky. He wasn’t convinced.
Nim and Lil sat that night discussing what to do about Joe’s wish. They sipped on tiny tumblers full of hot cocoa–with extra sugar and whipped cream on top, of course–and tried to think of some way to make it snow.
“Couldn’t Santa make it snow?” Nim asked Lil.
“Sure, he could,” Lil told him. “But he’s a bit busy now with keeping the Builder Elves hard at work making toys for good little boys and girls.”
True, thought Nim, but they couldn’t make snow without him, even with all of their pixie dust combined.
“I just want to do something special for Joe’s birthday,” Nim sighed.
They had already spread out a tissue paper table cloth. On a paper plate in the middle sat a mountain of birthday sprinkled chocolate donut holes with 4 candles jammed in the top.
“Something is missing,” mused Lil, tapping her fingers.
“Snow is missing,” said Nim for the fourth time.
“We could use flour,” offered Lil.
“I suppose,” said Nim.
“Or powdered sugar,” she tried.
“Sure,” he murmured.
“Or we could use the snowflake sprinkles in the cabinet,” she suggested.
“Maybe,” Nim replied.
“Or we could–“
“We could cut paper snowflakes and plaster them all over the walls, hang them from the light fixtures and throw the paper cutouts all over the place!” Nim proclaimed, jumping and twirling around.
Lil smiled widely, happy that Nim’s spirits had finally lifted.
The two got busy cutting. Nim scribbled a quick note to wish Joe a very happy birthday. He had heard his mom and dad talking about the fun-filled day they had planned for him, so he included a little schedule of events.
And now, for the fun.
They flew wildly around the kitchen table throwing handfuls of tiny paper triangles, half circles and diamonds in the air. The scraps landed haphazardly all over the table and floor.
Poor Charlie ran in fright as a drift of paper snow fluttered down on his coat.
After they were satisfied with the blizzard they’d created, they found a bag of snowman marshmallows tucked away on the top of the microwave.
“I bet they were trying to hide these from us!” said a shocked Lil.
Nim roared with laughter. “And who could blame them? We’ve gone through almost 3 pounds of sugar since we’ve been here…and that’s holding back!”
So they ate a few of the marshmallows, leaving a handful for the kids on the table.
The snowflakes they had made hung from the lights and Nim and Lil took their places.
“I’m going to hang upside down so I can see his face when he finds his breakfast birthday cake,” Nim said with delight. “He’s going to love it!”
“We haven’t done anything with the tree in a while,” Nim said thoughtfully, thinking back to when they replaced the angel on top with a roll of toilet paper.
Lil looked at the white lights and twinkling angel. Nim was right, they hadn’t messed with the tree in a long time.
“We could hang these headbands all over the tree,” suggested Lil, holding up the four headbands they a had brought as gifts: two springy rudolphs for the boys and two boingy snowmen for the girls.
“I suppose,” said Nim without excitement.
They continued to gaze at the tree, mesmerized by the shimmering lights and sparkling ornaments.
Sparkling ornaments. That gave Nim an idea.
“Look!” he said to Lil. “A sequined Santa coat!”
Lil knew exactly what Nim was thinking. She buzzed around the tree looking for a matching Mrs. Claus ornament.
“I guess I’ll just have to peek out of the branches,” she said, a little disappointed that there wasn’t one for her.
“Nah,” Nim smiled. “I have a great idea for you!
They made a medium-sized mess with the Christmas bows as they created a “bow climbing” wall on the side of the cabinets for Lil.
Lil climbed up the cabinets, setting the snowmen headbands on top of the window ledge and using a fabric tape measure she’d found in the desk drawer as a harness.
Nim jotted a quick note for the kids and flew to the tree to get the Santa suit on.
We had some fun And some laughs too Climbing up the tree We’ve left some bows And gifts for you We know how pleased you’ll be The Rudolphs are for little boys The snowmen for the gals Get them down, put them on And spring around the house!
He hung the reindeer from the tree first. Then tried to get in the suit. He had some difficulty getting it to fit just right and ended up having to stick his head through the hanger to stay in place.
But, the trouble was worth it.
The kids would have a little more trouble spotting him in the morning. He was sure of it.
Nim and Lil found a bag of smarties while searching for food coloring in the kitchen.
Smarties were made almost entirely of sugar.
Smarties were one of their favorite foods. Second only to sugar.
They spent about 10 minutes gobbling up over half the bag and were now in the midst of the biggest sugar craze since ’91 when Flakey downed two bottles of pure maple syrup.
That had not ended well.
In his sugared state, Flakey had destroyed the Christmas tree in his family’s home. Ornaments, tinsel, lights and pine needles littered the living room floor–a few pieces of tinsel even made it into the dog bowl.
He would have lost his scouting privileges had the family not thought the whole mess was hysterically funny. Good thing Santa has a sense of humor too.
“Watch this!” cried Nim, bombing the tree with smartie wrappers.
Lil was in a frenzy, tumbling head over feet through the air, knocking over any Santa nesting doll or snowman that was in her path.
They sobered a bit when Joe’s mom came into the living room. She must have heard them because she looked around the room, too groggy to really see anything.
After she stumbled back to bed, Nim and Lil breathed a pepperminty sigh of relief.
“I guess we had one too many smarties,” Lil chortled.
Mad laughter threatened to overtake them once again. Luckily, Nim spied a few spare smarties on the counter and formed a plan.
“Lil,” he said with a lopsided grin. “How many days until Christmas?”
“Seven, why?”
Nim let a little giggle escape as he flew to the desk to get supplies.
“You spell the girls’ names and I’ll take care of the boys,” he said, throwing her a roll of tape and a few packs of smarties.
A hill of wrappers and a few minutes later, Nim and Lil stood back to admire their handiwork.
Satisfied with the results, they fluttered to their places and tucked in for the few hours until morning
“Do you think the moms will be mad about candy so early in the morning?” asked Lil.
“I don’t like what I’m seeing here,” Santa said looking over Nim and Lil’s notes.
Nim and Lil peeked at each other, knowing what Santa was about to say. Their kids’ behavior had not been good.
In fact, it was slowly but surely creeping toward bad.
And bad behaviour was bad news.
Bad behaviour meant…The Naughty List.
“Well, Santa,” began Nim. “It’s just that–“
“I know you don’t want to do this,” Santa interrupted. “But the fact remains, Issabella and Cheyenne and Joe and Jake have not been behaving themselves. I’ve let it slide as long as I could.”
“Oh Santa,” Lil fretted. “Can’t we just give them one more chance before we put them on The Naughty List?”
Now, Santa was not known to be a big meanie, so he looked kindly at the elves and said, “Now, now. Don’t get upset. You can give them one more chance to mend their ways. Remind them that you can spy both good and bad behaviour everywhere they go. And if they don’t behave…”
“Oh, thank you Santa!” they both cried at once and scurried out the door.
On their trip back to the house, Nim and Lil discussed different ways to warn the kids that they were dangerously close to getting put on The Naughty List.
“I know that my girls will understand what The List means–they’ve had a couple of close calls before–but what about your boys? Do you think they are still too young?”
Nim didn’t want to admit it, but he’d been thinking the exact same thing. Were Joe and Jake too young to understand what The Naughty List meant?
“I’m not so sure about Jake. He still may be too little,” Nim murmured, almost as if to himself. “But Joe knows what it means to be in trouble so heshould understand the seriousness of The List.”
“Alright,” said Lil as they landed on the counter, “Let’s get to work.”
The two friends sat and made a list of behaviors that had been especially naughty.
“They’ve been fighting,” said Nim.
“A lot,” agreed Lil. “And not just with each other, they’ve been arguing with their parents too.”
“And not listening,” said Nim.
“Or doing what they’re told,” added Lil.
“Punching?!” asked a shocked Lil when Nim added it to the list.
“That’s right,” replied Nim, a rather grim look on his face. “And it has been a struggle to get them to pick up their toys and clean their plates too.”
After double-checking the list to make sure they had included everything, Nim and Lil relieved some stress by plastering Christmas stickers all over the kitchen counter, table and floor.
Laughing, Lil said, “I suppose we should clean up our mess since we are scolding the kids for not cleaning up theirs.”
“Yes, I guess that’s true,” Nim said, twirling through the air and pelting fuzzy pom poms at Lil.
They cleaned up the clutter they had made. Giggling at their own silliness, they took their positions for the day, trying (and failing) to hide themselves under Christmas stickers.
“Boy, we sure don’t make very good spies,” smirked Lil.
Nim giggled nervously, hoping that the kids wouldn’t be too upset by their note.
a pinch of homestead 
