The Danish Elves

In Sweden and Denmark, Carole and I admired so many of the Christmas decorations. Most of all there was a specific style of elf that reoccurred in ornaments and decor, a company called Maileg. I fell in love with a large advent calendar elf, but they cost about $120 CAD (which is hard to justify, even if I would use it every Christmas for decades to come). So imagine how excited I was when I found the same artisan elf that had been imported and was on Christmas clearance ($30) at an American online store! I was so excited I bought one for Carole for Christmas, too. And Carole had the great idea that our new tradition will be to buy 24 little gifts for each other and send them to each other in November to fill each other's advent elf.

I didn't expect the company to mail them with UPS, though, so I was waiting for them to arrive the slow way. Then yesterday I finally checked my voice messages, and UPS had called on Christmas Eve saying they couldn't deliver, but I could go pick it up. I was very worried they would send them back to the States, but they managed to stop them in the warehouse just in time. Tonight my flatmate Lillian was very generous to drive me to the UPS warehouse (I could never get there on the bus!) It turns out that they had tried to deliver it again and somehow delivered it with another package to a neighbor in my building! He even paid the GST. Then two days later he called back irate, but threatened not to return the package (the UPS woman said he was nasty). I guess they convinced him to let them pick it up again, and if that whole fiasco hadn't happened, I probably would have never gotten my elves. Better yet, I didn't have to pay the GST!

So here are my precious elves... yes, they are five feet tall; that's part of the charm. Each little pocket fits the gift for the 24 days before Christmas.