Who Needs The Elf on the Shelf?

Have you seen The Elf on the Shelf? He's as cute as a button and a fun thing to do with your kids in the weeks before Christmas. I have been meaning to pick one up but I'm late doing everything and I haven't gotten one yet. Sometimes procrastination pays off because we have taken that concept and used something we already had to do our own version of the Elf. We are using good old deer crap. Yes, you read that correctly. We have replaced the cute, clean little elf with a pile of deer pellets.

Our house backs up to a protected greenspace and creek, and we have a bunch of wildlife. You can sit in our family room and watch squirrels in the treetops, and chipmunks on the ground. We have raccoons, rabbits, many kinds of birds and deer. The deer like to come around to eat my pansies and then they leave us some poop in the yard. This morning, Wiener Dog was caught eating a pile of deer turds and Fidel came in to tell me and Tootie about it. Tootie brightened up and said, "Reindeer poop, Dad?" and our story just came from that. We told her that Santa's reindeer come to check and see if kids are being good and keeping their rooms clean, and if they were being good, there was no poop left in the yard, but if they were being bad the reindeer marked the yard with their poop. She really loved that story and I think it will be fun for her. I was about to warn her against going to school and talking about the reindeer turds but then I realized that since I had shown her some Mr. Hankey clips on You Tube last night, deer turds would be a better option for kindergarten conversation. She loves Mr. Hankey. Fidel looked over at me as Mr. Hankey sang and told me I was Mother of the Year material. Hi-dee Ho!