The Mystery of "Gnocchi" on the Shelf

 "The first time I come to the place you call home you quickly must give me a name of my own."

                -from The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition, 

                 by Carol V. Aebersold and Chanda A. Bell 

    

If you are a parent, you are probably familiar with the Elf on the Shelf.  Just in case you are not familiar with this recent addition to family-must-have traditions at Christmastime... the Elf on the Shelf is a cute little book that come with a little vintage-style knee hugger Elf.  The book calls him a "friendly scout elf" who helps Santa by keeping track of all of your naughty and nice behaviors.  Every night he flies magically back to Santa to give his report, and each morning he is back- but in a new spot. This is really the fun part about it. The kids have to find the Elf every morning. 

Sidenote on Santa: we are not doing the whole "Santa" thing.  Our theory is that the best approach is that Santa is a fun Christmas character and it is fun to imagine Santa and his elfs ect, but we will not be promoting the Santa as being real. You may disagree...but that's just what we decided....moving on.

So you may be wondering why I'm even posting this since Christmas is over, the decorations (mostly) put away, and now the New Year is underway... well we had an Elf on the Shelf mystery.  Part of the book tells you that you have to give your Elf a name of its own, but it wasn't like we sat down with Jack, read the story, and then made him pick a name for this little Elf.  He just started calling him "Gnocchi Shelf" (he kinda leaves out the "on the" part).  The first time I was kind of surprised, I even asked him, "Oh- is that his name" and Jack said, "Yes! Gnocchi Shelf!" and he excitedly showed me where he had found him.  From then on out he was "Gnocchi Shelf" and we were puzzled. Why would he call him Gnocchi?  

We could only think of two associations with Gnocchi:

1.) We do love Italian food, and gnocchi is one of our favorite dishes- Jack loves it too, so maybe that was where it came from? He does love his food. The thing was that we hadn't had gnocchi recently, so that was kind of a long shot. 

2.) There is a cat on Curious George named Gnocchi.  He (appropriately) belongs to the Italian chef on the show. Jack LOVES "Georgy Georgy," so we thought maybe he just picked up the name from the show and gave it to the Elf. 

We honestly didn't know, but we just went along with it, and chuckled about it all season long! 

Then on the 27th, we went to Fashion Valley for a few minutes around 5:30ish (worst decision ever...sooo crowded). We walked from Bloomingdales to Anthropologie, and after that we were so overwhelmed by the masses we were practically running back to Bloomingdales (where we parked) when all of a sudden we were passing Geppetto's Toy Store, and Jack looked up and saw the giant Pinnochhio over the doorway and said, 

"Gnocchi Shelf." 

 We were hurrying along and Sean and I both replied something like, "Yes, that's Pinocchio, he does kind of look like Gnocchi.." and we both stopped in our tracks.

Pinocchio. Gnocchi. That was it!!! He remembered Pinocchio and was subsequently calling the elf by the same name- but in his adorable 2 year old venacular, it was Gnocchi. 

So that was it! We just never made the connection because honestly, I'm not even sure when Jack heard about Pinocchio. He never ceases to amaze me; the things that he knows and remembers. Maybe I'm a little biased, but I kind of think he is a genius. I'm just saying. One thing is for sure- "Gnocchi" on the Shelf is officially the Bradford Elf, and I love it. I'm already looking forward to bringing him out again next year!! 

xo