A Sinister Christmas Penguin

My wife has a thing for Christmas penguins. There are several of them throughout the house, and even one that lights up which we have outside. I of course think the Christmas penguins are ridiculous.

"What do penguins have to with Christmas?" I ask.

My wife gives me an incredulous look, "They're from the North Pole."

Of course that statement is possibly as ridiculous as I think the penguins are since most penguins are found in the SOUTHERN hemisphere. Not the Northern hemisphere where presumably the North Pole would be located.

Ahem. In any event.

One day for a practical joke I placed two of the smaller Christmas penguins in the microwave and snapped a photo which I shared on Facebook, and of course shared on my wife's timeline as well. After she posted, "Noooooooo!" she followed it up quickly with, "They will get you one day."

"I'm shaking in my boots," I responded.

Recently there has been a video circulating around which depicts an "Elf on a Shelf" sitting at a dinner table while a young man enjoys a snack. Next to him is a small pill bottle. The elf's hand moves a bit and shuffles the bottle. The young man looks at the elf sitting next to him, but the elf is still. He turns back to his plate of food and then the elf's hand moves quickly and knocks the bottle off the table. The young man jumps out of his chair and out of the camera shot.

The video brought me to tears. But then it made me think back to the exchange my wife and I had about those Christmas penguins. Most notably I recalled her warning me, "They will get you one day."

So we decided to have a little fun with the "Elf on a Shelf" video idea and make one of our own. Only this time we'd use a stuffed Christmas penguin with beady eyes and a hat with bells. What makes the video for me is the way the Christmas penguin slowly turns towards me.

My wife was the puppeteer. Although after I went back to stop the camera, my wife came out of the back bedroom. "Ready to do the video?"

Okay, that last part was made up. But it became part of the joke when I originally posted this video to my Facebook page.