Care and feeding of Elves 101

OK...the elves did show up!  No cute little costumes, but our friends Doug and Vicki are cute enough without the pointy ears. They showed up at our house/office after their real jobs and volunteered to help with this shipment. In return, I fed them!

I found a pan of enchiladas in my freezer. Check out the recipe from my daughter Ali's blog - http://gimmesomeoven.com/best-chicken-enchiladas-ever/?s=enchilada. I baked those and added 2 kinds of Mexi-cheese (elves are known to favor cheese). Doug showed up with a big bag of frozen food and whipped up this frozen concoction that made us all feel happy (and berry healthy), as we anticipated the strenuous work ahead.

After dinner, we cleared the kitchen table and got to work on a variety of assembly tasks...sacking Tiny Tidings XVI chartpaks, assembling 6 Fat Men Flip-its and assembling more of those Santa '11 Embellishment packs.

We took a break for some yummy ice cream pie I whipped up earlier. This is SO easy, and everyone loves it.  I used a pre-made graham cracker crust, then layered on 2 flavors of ice cream (chocolate chip and cappuccino chunky chocolate. In between the layers and on top I sprinkled some Heath bar chips.  Then top with hot caramel topping and whipped cream...and Santa's workshop is a happy place!

Alan is such an over-achiever, he was multi-tasking...eating pie and assembling embellishment packs at the same time. And who said he couldn't multi-task?!

Alas, the elves went home and we continued packing orders into the night. It really goes smoothly when the phone isn't ringing and you've had some good elf food for energy!