You forgot to move the elf

First: it may not need explaining

Children frequently do not notice. If nobody has said anything, move it now and say nothing. Announcing a problem that has not been spotted creates one.

If it has been spotted

One explanation: “it fell asleep — the flight back from the North Pole is long and elves are small.” Say it once, in an ordinary voice, and move on. Confidence carries it; detail does not.

One reason is also the only kind you can keep. A second explanation tomorrow is the thing that gets compared, and a child who has been given two is being invited to test both.

• ·Say it once, then change the subject — do not keep offering it
• ·Add nothing: no times, no errand, no job the elf was doing
• ·If they ask again later, repeat the same sentence rather than improving it
• ·If they ask why it is lying down, it is asleep — that is the same answer
• ·If it did not move because somebody picked it up, that is a different situation; see below

The thirty-second setup that covers it

Lay the elf on its side where it already is, with something small over it as a blanket — a tissue, a face cloth, a sock. Put a scrap of paper next to it reading, in bad handwriting, “so tired”.

It takes half a minute, it explains itself without you having to say anything, and children find the elf being tired much funnier than the elf being clever.

When the elf cannot be moved tonight

Sometimes the elf is somewhere you cannot reach without waking someone: above a sleeping child, behind a door that creaks, on a shelf that needs a ladder. Leave it exactly where it is. An elf that stays put on purpose is a different story from an elf that was forgotten.

Say it once in the morning: the elf liked the view so much it asked Santa for one more night in the same spot. Then move it as usual the next night. If you would rather the elf said it, a short note propped where the child will see it does the job; Elf Emergency’s forgotten-move fix writes one in the elf’s own hand.