The Elves of 2007

Since I posted about the existence of Christmas Elves the other day, I thought I'd follow up with a list of some of the Elves that came to visit this year:

The Like-it Elf
The Cozy Elf
The Naughty Elf
The Here & There & Back Again Elf
The Early Morning Elf
The DC Elf
The Lounging Elf
The Rival Elves (apparently from NC State and UNC)
The Asana Elf
The Shiny Elf

And I know that at least a few different Elves showed up out in North Carolina this year at my sister's house (where most of my family was this year):

The Sartorial Elf
The Chance Elf
The Self-Serving Elf

T-Minus 48 hrs to Orange Rolls

My family has a number of long-standing Christmas traditions, most centered around food in one way or another. One of my favorites, though, and one that I've continued since leaving home, is to have Orange Rolls (family recipe) and bacon for breakfast on Christmas day.

Orange Rolls are light and fluffy (at least how I make them) with a mild Orange taste and an orange glaze. And bacon is, well, salty. Salty-sweet perfection. mmmmm.

And it's the perfect breakfast to eat over the course of the gift-opening marathon that takes place Christmas morning.

[sigh] so good.

can't wait.

Christmas is for the Elves

You may not believe in Santa Clause, but at least his Elves are real. At least in my family. Every year I get a number of gifts from various Elves, most nice, some used, some, well, mischevious. And I love it.

My family loves to give gifts, and we give (and get) a lot of them. The typical Christmas morning takes maybe 3-4 hours because of the number of gifts, and because we open them one at a time. Awesome. (plus orange rolls and bacon, double awesome, but that's for another post)

And a lot of those gifts are from Elves. For example, I frequently get great books from the "Used-Book Elf", who must frequent used-book stores looking for the books that other folks in the family have read and enjoyed. I *never* get a used book from someone in the family, even though they have obviously read the same book the Elf is giving me, but then, who gives a used book on Christmas? It's just not right. But the Elves have their own thinking about what's right and what isn't. And the "used-book elf" is a personal favorite since that Elf has particularly good reading taste.

And of course there's the "Sartorial Elf" who leaves me looking dapper. Or the "Cozy Elf" who keeps the whole family warm. There are even college-specific Elves. I know of ones from Duke, Florida State, Miami of Ohio, Vanderbilt... they're everywhere.

And let me tell you, the Elves are multiplying. Every year some new Elf shows up. Or a whole cadre of new Elves. It could be scary to think of this hidden race, slowly propogating without most of humanity's knowledge, except that for the most part they're benign, even benefecial; I mean, the gifts are usually good!

So long live the Elves.

+3:54 of fame

A month or so I ago I presented to the MMA (Mobile Marketing Association) in Los Angeles. Afterwards I was interviewed by BnetTV, an online news source. I'm only mentioning it because I clearly need to add it to my "fame counter" (previously at 15 seconds). However, I really can't watch it; maybe you can.

Fame Counter Total: 4:09

Still don't have my face on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine, so I haven't won the $5 bet with my college roommates about who will end up there first.

Modern gift giving to the nth degree

More and more I see friends and family members either giving or asking for gift cards for Christmas. On the one hand, this is great, because they can buy exactly what they want, and if they like shopping (many of the women in my immediate family don't seem to mind), they get to enjoy that, too.

However, it does seem a bit strange to me when two people exchange gift cards.

"Here, I got you $50 to REI".
"Oh, thank you! That's so great. And here's your Christmas present, a $50 gift certificate to Macy's!"
"Awesome!"

Ok... so why don't we just spend our own money on ourselves on behalf of each other? For example:

"Hey! I spent $50 (that I saved myself) to buy a new fleece at REI for myself on your behalf! Thanks and Merry Christmas!"
"Oh, that's great. I spent $50 to buy a new coat at Macy's for myself on YOUR behalf! Merry Christmas to you, too. "

Not quite the way it worked with the Wise Men, I suppose, but seems like the logical conclusion to this trend.

Of course, half the fun of gift giving is *giving* the gift, and figuring out what to give the person is what makes it both fun and meaningful. So while I don't mind getting gift cards, I much prefer to give a tangible present.

Strengths Finder

I realized that I never blogged about this, but I found it on my desk today while cleaning up a bit. A number of months ago my team went through the Strengths Finder program, which is sort of a businessy version of a personality test, to find out what our underlying strengths are (so that we can theoretically focus on leveraging them, rather than trying to fix our weaknesses).

Here were mine:

Futurist
Ideation
Strategic
Communication
Activator

Here are the definitions:

Futurist: People strong in the Futurist theme are inspired by the future and what could be. They inspire others with their visions of the future.

Ideation: People strong in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.

Strategic: People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.

Communication: People strong in the communication theme generally find it eway to put their thoughts into words. They are good conversationalists and presenters.

Activator: People strong in the Activor theme can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. They are often impatient.


Fits me pretty well. The really interesting part for me, though, was in the more detailed descriptions, which I'll post later if I can find them. Basically, at least 3 of the first 4 strengths all say that I should partner with an "activator", which is my 5th strength! Split personality?