A mom discovered that her son’s elf had mysteriously lost a leg while he was in school—so she spent hours concocting an elaborate back story to keep the magic alive.
Lauren Weir introduced the elf toy to her 4-year-old son Tommy for the first time on December 1st, but that evening she was horrified to discover that his right leg had been torn off and was now nowhere to be found.
“I completely panicked. It was only day one and he was already so in love, I was like ‘oh my god what am I going to do’. I didn’t have time to go out and get another one.
“If I didn’t fix it I knew he’d be devastated, yet I knew if it lost a leg he’d just accept it—but it needed to have a story about why it was gone.
The 30-year-old then scrambled to salvage her son’s beloved elf by stitching closed the hole so the white stuffing inside wasn’t showing. Then, she came up with an imaginative cover story to explain the missing limb.
She staged a dinosaur attack using the schoolboy’s toys and explained that the ‘naughty’ beasts had eaten the elf’s leg, rendering him an amputee.
“He was so excited when he came downstairs the next day, he was like ‘where’s his leg?’. I was like, ‘the dinosaurs must have eaten it!’
Eventually he grabbed his Iron Man action figure to fight back and teach the “naughty dinosaurs” a lesson.
The boy, in Hertfordshire, England, thinks it’s great that his elf survived a dinosaur attack—and the ruse has led to more fun surprises.
When Tommy expressed worry about how his elf would get around without his leg, the creative mom ‘put a call in to Santa’ and had an elf-sized wheelchair ‘delivered’ the next day.
“He was concerned about how the elf was going to get around only having one leg so I made a call to Santa in front of him and requested that he send some crutches or a wheelchair to the elf.
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Lauren posted a video about the toy’s ordeal online with the caption: “This elf is going to take over my life,” after spending hours stitching his leg and building a Lego wheelchair.
The next day when the boy came down the elf was sitting on his wheelchair throne, which could be pushed to roll around the house.
“Santa’s really good at making Lego wheelchairs,” cooed Tommy.
“The wheelchair took ages because I was trying to be quiet sifting through the Lego—because it’s so noisy—trying to make it from Christmas colors, red and green.”
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The magical character has since gone on to bring more joy in the household.
Creative elf scenes in their home have included an ‘advent calendar truck’ delivery full of chocolate coins and sweets and a fishing scene on the top of their aquarium tank with a fishing rod made out of a shoelace.
“We’ll be keeping this elf; he loves him so much even with one leg.
“I’m praying that the leg doesn’t turn up because then I’m really going to have to wrack my brain to cover that up somehow.”
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