A New Member of the Family

You may recall my post last year about our Christmas gift from my Grandparents.  Remember: Chuckles, the spawn of Satan disguised as a Christmas Elf?  As you can imagine, it took us a long time to recover from his malicious ways.  Luckily, the day after Christmas, we were able to pack him up and lock him in a closet--safe for at least eleven months.

Well, this year we were pleasantly surprised to welcome a new member into our family.  This year's gift was an adorable reindeer who was eager to complete our home this Christmas season.  Charles, as he is called, was so excited to come home with us.

We wasted no time showing Charles around the house.  Tom pointed out all the gifts under the tree that were for him:

I read him my favorite Christmas story:

All in all, we were so happy to have such a wonderful addition in our home!  We wanted to make sure Charles felt all the love in the world:

It seemed like the perfect story--our very own warm fuzzy just in time for the holidays.  Little did we know that in our attempts to cheer up our home with a festive Christmas touch that we unknowingly unleashed one of the scariest parts of our past.

We weren't prepared for a sequel to last year's hauntings.  After all, we had blocked all our horrific December memories.  But Chuckles made sure his presence was known.   And it didn't take long for the memories (and the fear) to follow.

It was clear that Chuckles did not care for Charles like we did.  I don't think all the attention we gave Charles helped the situation, either.  Chuckles had it out for Charles.  Had we known ahead of time what would follow, we certainly would have tried to find a better home for Charles.  But we couldn't imagine the inhumanity.  No one could.

Chuckles first attacks did not prove successful.  Luckily for us (and Charles) this cute little reindeer knows how to climb!

Unfortunately, Charles' next attempt to escape the elf proved less successful.  Chuckles was too quick and pulled him down with gusto!

Thankfully, we got home just in time to stop Chuckles from doing any serious damage.  We gave Chuckles a long lecture on how to treat family members.  There would be NO harassing of our favorite Christmas friend!  We thought we had made our point pretty clear.  However, the next day, while we were gone, Chuckles tried to strangle Charles with Christmas lights:

And then he boxed him up and attempted to send him to Zimbabwe:

Fortunately, it was Sunday and the post office was closed.  Needless to say, we were not happy!  It was time to get serious about our punishments.  After making Chuckles write "I will not mail Charles" 1 billion times, we felt pretty confident that he would behave.

In fact, things were going so well that the four of us were able to play a few games of Rummikub!  Fun times, for sure:

Of course, nobody seemed to be winning, except Chuckles.  Not sure why:

But we had a good time, nonetheless:

When all was said and done, the week ended well.  It is comforting to know that all the "kiddies" are FINALLY getting along:

 Tom and I sleep much better at night knowing that things are finally right.  And I'm sure Charles does, too.

Merry Christmas!