i only wear white when it rains

Each year my daughter’s school community adds more than 200 underserved children to the holiday shopping lists that have us searching all over North America for wonder pet ankle boots that don’t exist.

In a heartwarming display of generosity, our holiday gift drive culminates in a sea of wrapped toys, shiny new bikes and moms sorting gifts while trying to avoid pouring coffee down our red turtleneck sweaters, or worse, on the athletic center floor (grounds for expulsion at our school).

It’s such a joyous event brimming with the spirit of the season no one would ever suspect I yelled at the Starbucks barista this morning for running out of skim milk.

We also donate personal hygiene items for the grandmothers and other care providers of the children in the Guardian Ad Litem program to which the holiday gift drive benefits.

My personal favorite donation wasn’t hard to find. What was hard was deciding which lucky granny should receive this special gift.

Jingles really lowered his standards when he wandered into this glorified Happy Meal toy

Weeks after I spent the equivalent of three semesters at Princeton on American Girl Doll accessories for Christmas (including a loft bed that is bigger than my first apartment), my daughter cultivated a new obsession: Winx Fairies.

Hoping this latest craze will pass as quickly as my so-called “deluxe” pedicure (whoa…did I even get a massage?), I didn’t pay too much attention to her Winx talk until yesterday morning when she mentioned something about a Winx Tutti Frutti Music & Smoothie Bar.

I raised my eyebrows suspiciously, which might be a lie since they don’t actually move. But there was something about the way she worked Tutti Frutti into our conversation about Tony Bennett (I think?) that had me suspecting she was testing me to see if I was paying attention.

I was not.

Luckily I vaguely remembered spotting a Winx toy like that during one of my weekly parole visits to Target where I check in whether I need to buy 23 bottles of Olay body wash for that $5 giftcard or not.

So I purchased the Tutti Frutti Gin Joint later that day, immediately regretting my decision to add to the mounds of crappy plastic toys that seem to reproduce in my daughter’s play area like compost worms.

But it was (sort of) worth the finger lacerations I earned at midnight from removing the rubber bands, wire ties and various razor blade-like oyster packaging shards that cemented the $36 sweatshop by-product together to hear my daughter squeal this morning when she spotted her elf Jingles sporting fairy wings at the Tutti Frutti with one of the “Enchantix” fairies that has me fearing the Winx franchise might be a sex trafficking operation.

Jingles needs medical attention

Jingles is in critical condition following a brutal stabbing last night.

When I checked in on my daughter later in the day to make sure she wasn’t yet glowing in the dark from the carcinogenic heap of BPA plastic, I noticed Jingles was no longer hanging out at the Tutti Frutti.

Unusual since the original Elf on the Shelf book cautioned children against moving their elves, and my child is not one to question Santa’s authority.

“Where’s Jingles?” I asked her.

She gave me a grave look before pointing to her desk where Jingles was resting on a pillow.

“Is he hungover?” I asked (in my head) before saying, “Oh, he must be sleepy.”

With watery eyes she opened her mouth before falling silent.

“He…he…,” she finally stammered. “He used these to keep his fairy wings on!” she said, completely horrified.

Then she held up my Mother of the Year trophies. Which were actually two giant menacing-looking push pins I used the night before to secure Jingles’ fairy wings when tape, hairbands and my lack of innovativeness failed to do so.

It was hard to refrain from punching myself in the face after I saw her look of genuine concern. It was even harder not to laugh at the horrific incisions she believes Jingles inflicted upon himself. I half expected her to blurt out, “My dear, sweet Jingles is a cutter and needs some serious psychiatric help.”

So I let her counsel Jingles about his sadomasochism in the hopes that when she sees him co-piloting an airplane tomorrow morning, she doesn’t get too concerned about his questionable judgment and risk-taking behaviors.

As for me, I learned an important lesson today. Never stab the fucking elf.

Earlier in the week: Beeker is arrested for .98 blood alcohol level when trying to flee from Jingles covering Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas.” Authorities released him on 10,000 Swedish Meatballs bail.

I always can count on a certain barista for an extra shot of uncomfortable flirting.

“May I have…”

“You can have whatever you want…”

Um. Ew?

So it’s only a matter of time before I start Googling: “how do you know if you’ve been roofied?”

My daughter’s elf Jingles is quite the player.

Yesterday she found him surrounded by a harem of American Girl dolls in a heated game of hangman where I cleverly (we’re talking second grade “clever” here) spelled out “Jingles” in the used letter portion of the tiles.

This morning he was looking comfy on the couch with the ladies playing a game of “Guess what I am?”

Somewhere between 6 am and shoot me in the face, my daughter came running up the stairs to tell me about her discovery.

“…yeah – McKenna had a hippopotamus card on her head!”

“No way!” I said, wide-eyed and wondering why there isn’t a “Mommy Academy Awards” because I’d totally win, feign the same surprise and thank caffeine in my speech. “That’s hilarious!”

“I know,” she continued, “and Jingles was holding the die!”

Let me hit pause to treasure this…

…the moment at which with pride, joy and gratitude, I realized my eight year old correctly used the singular form of dice.