Max's Retirement Celebration

This afternoon was a special one for myself and for Darbee Rae.  I had ask her Mommy on Thursday evening if she could come home with me from church services today and spend the evening. Although I see my girls almost daily, it is a rare ocassion when Darbee Rae and I spend time alone.  She goes to daycare during the week and weekends are usually busy for them and for us.  So.... needless to say we were both excited.  Sundays are really depressing , since that was the day I have spent with Mother at the nursing home regularly for almost 5 years. But today ,, time flew by and memories were made. 

Let me introduce you to Max.  Max is one of the very few ornaments that I have from my childhood.  How he has survived all these years is sheer magic.  Yep, you know elves are anyway.  Poor thing has hung on a number of different trees as I was growing up.  My earliest memory was a "ugly see thru" cedar tree I went out in the woods with my Daddy to cut for us.  Max hung on that tree with that smile just as if it was the most beautiful tree in the whole world.  We had those kind of trees for years and it became a treat for Daddy and me to go to the woods and cut a tree.  Then one year Mother decided we had to have one of those shiney aluminum trees with the color wheel.  I hated that thing but Max made himself right at home on those branches.  Poor thing, I bet he had wished for sunglasses as that wheel kept turning and changing colors.  Then came the year we got an artificial tree. Finally  a pretty tree, but there was no Christmas smell to it, but again Max and I were happy,.

When I married , Max came along to our home and has held viligance over all our trees each Christmas season for 38 years . However last year, he came alive again during the holidays.  He would always know when Darbee Rae was coming to visit and he would hide in some of the funniest places and have her a little gift leading up to Christmas Day.  Max has been at it for over 50 years and I was so worried that he might get hurt, have to be stitched up ,or have a broken bone.

When we talked to Santa at his workshop week before last , our request was for Santa to send a younger elf to take Max's place at Nana's house.  Today we got our wish and Max has retired.  This is where he will be during the holiday.

Was this okay with Darbee Rae you might ask?  She was fine with Max watching from the mantle.  She gave him a kiss and ask if she could hold him some during Christmas.  The transition was an easy one because when we got in from service today, this is what we found

Can you tell she was excited?  At this point she had no idea what was inside.  She just knew it was from Santa.

We wasted no time tearing into the package to see just what Santa had sent. There was a huge lollipop, a long letter and......

.

WILBUR!!  Santa kept his promise and sent Wilbur, a much younger elf to take over Max's job during the holidays.  Darbee Rae took to him immediately. It will be so much fun to see him come to life while we sleep each night and see what mischief he will get into.  Elmer is the elf at her house and he gets into all kind of trouble.  She was so excited, so we decided to bring out the Easy Bake oven Aunt Maudie and Uncle Leonard gave her for her birthday and bake a cake in honor of Max retirement.

Working so hard mixing up the cake.  Look at the tiny pan.  Brought back so many memories.  Did you have an Easy Bake Oven

Guess all that baking was well worth the trouble.  Yummm, chocolate icing.  A girl can't go wrong with chocolate  Max, sure hope you appreciate us baking a cake just for you.

Out of the kitchen and down to some serious playing.  Legos!  Who knows you might be looking at a famous engineer in the making,  Before we knew it the afternoon was gone and it was time to say goodbye for the evening. 

Darbee Rae I hope you had as much fun as I did.  We must have another Darbee/Nana day again soon.

I will be back soon to share with you a wonderful package I recieved in the mail  and the wonderful day I had on Saturday.

This holiday week is coming to a close.  Hoping you all made some wonderfukl memories with your family and friends.  Mr. P has to go back to work tomorrow after being on holiday all week, and I must say I am going to miss him,,,,, and eating our meals out.  Back to the regular routine of everyday life.  But,, I am ready and thankful for the memories of this past week.

Until next time