We’re always telling our children we’d do anything for them.
Apparently that includes going out on Black Friday, looking for a hard-to-find item that isn’t even a Christmas gift.
In the past, I’ve told you about Steve the Elf. He’s our Elf on the Shelf. He bounces around, landing in a new place each night after allegedly flying back to the North Pole every night to tattle on my children to Santa Claus.
Despite his narc tendencies, my children really like Steve. I have to admit, he’s a pretty good deterrent in the month leading up to Christmas.
This year, Steve got a pet. A small, plush reindeer joined our family. Unlike Steve, who can’t be touched, Swift the Reindeer (or Taylor Swift, as my middle child insists on calling her) can be a plaything and apparently has no magic until she’s called home on Christmas Eve.
Ever since Swift joined us, my 7-year-old daughter has been enamored. They have some connection I just don’t understand.
Thus, it was heartbreaking Thanksgiving morning when she couldn’t find Swift. She was convinced Swift must have flown home to the North Pole for some reindeer emergency.
On Friday, she left a heartbreaking note next to Steve to bring back to Santa. She begged Santa to let Swift come back home, declaring how much she missed this miniature reindeer.
My wife intercepted the note and sent me a picture of it at work.
If you’re unfamiliar with the location of The Lima News’ office, it’s on Elida Road, which also happens to be where much of the shopping on the west side of Lima occurs. So, on Black Friday, in the midst of the early bird Christmas shoppers, I received a message that my youngest was teary-eyed because we couldn’t find Swift.
I did what any father who can’t process negative emotions would do. I tried to buy my way out of it. I headed out near the mall and into the madness.
I should make this clear: I don’t like shopping. For starters, I’m very cheap. I don’t like spending money, unless it’s on a good steak, and even there my extravagances end at rib-eye. Second, I really don’t like crowds. Third, I just can’t think of any reason a person would head out into a large crowd looking for one item.
Unless that one item was a replacement for Swift.
I wandered into one store that Google claimed had the reindeer. Google lied to me. I shouldered my way through the crowd there for 10 minutes, trying to find the Elf on the Shelf display. I found the display, but no reindeer.
Then I headed to another nearby store. This time, my wife assisted. She called the next store ahead of me, talking to an employee who confirmed she’d seen that item recently. Once I wiggled through traffic into the next store’s lot, I headed into a store promising lots of toys in its name, along with an errant R. I’m convinced the R is for rearranged, as nothing was where I remembered it being the last time I entered that store.
I walked up and down nearly every aisle for 15 minutes, scanning shelves for a miniature reindeer replacement. I grew frustrated and called my wife, seeing if she had any guesses where they might be.
I wandered around, half talking to myself and half talking to my wife on my phone. Then I finally found the aisle, as if I’d finally found the Holy Grail.
“Wait,” my wife said to someone in our home. “You found Swift? Where was she?”
Swift had sneaked into another child’s bed at some point and hid deep under the covers. After days of searching, she’d finally made herself visible again.
Our children will never know how much we love them. But we know how much: So much that we’d head out on the worst day of the year to do something we hate, just for the possibility of bringing smiles back to their faces.
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