Anyone else feel like this is the most stressful time of the year? It's been a long month and I feel like December has gotten away with me a little bit.

BUT, Duke is into it. He asks me every day if it's Christmas Day or still Christmastime, and fueling that excitement is all I need to keep pushing the magic. We've been doing the Elf on the Shelf this week and it's been a blast. The feedback I got from most people is that a whole month of the elf gets friggin' exhausting, so I decided to bring it out for just the week before Christmas.

So I read the book that comes with it and explained that the elf - Duke named ours Red - would report Duke's behavior back to Santa every night. The exchange went a little bit like this:

D: "Him watching me?"

Us: "Yeah. If you're good, he'll tell Santa. But you know, if you're not..."

D: "I watching him too."

And then he proceeded to glare at the elf.

So we have a little bit of a combative situation, but he's still very delighted to see what hijinks the elf got up to each night and so it's still fun.


***

So, it's the last weekend before Christmas. I went to the mall last Saturday and immediately regretted my decision and I'm betting today will be even more of a party, as if that's possible. I'll be hunkering down to watch Frozen fifty times (Duke watched it for the first time last weekend and he is very passionate about Olaf and Sven, so it's on repeat) and if I can order milk on Amazon Prime, consider it done. I went grocery shopping for what is hopefully the last time until January because I cannot make it through Meijer during the holidays even one more time. I bought three of everything that Ryan loves and told him to make it last until 2020.

We'll see! Happy weekending you guys!