Do Elves Get Mental Health Coverage?

The scene: a local mall. Santa's Workshop, to be exact. A couple of cute "elves" bustling around. Santa sitting on his big red chair, waving at the Princesses - and their friends, the Tinkerbell Twins - to come over and see him. (Apparently, it was a slow day at Santa's Workshop.)

What do we do? We take the whole gang over to see Santa, of course. I'm a total Christmas freak - I'd go see Santa every day if I thought the Princesses wouldn't get totally sick of it.

What happens next: 1) is, as God is my witness, completely true; and 2)has already been filed as an official "Classic Princess Christmas Memory" that I will most definitely remind her of at various key points in her life - her 16th birthday party, her wedding day, etc.

As I'm obviously not paying attention and talking to this friend, an elf approaches and says, "Who's coming to visit Santa today?" Dear friend Julie (and mommy to the adorable Tinkerbell Twins) says, "Princess E, Tinkerbell Twin A, Tinkerbell Twin Z and Princess G...with her pants down."

Yep, Princess G is standing there, smiling ear-to-ear, with her pants and pull-up down around her ankles. Her cute little tush was shining for all the world to see, and she was just insanely proud of herself for accomplishing this feat all by herself. The elves and Julie all begin hysterically laughing. Santa begins ho-ho-ho-ing so hard I think he's going to pull something. I drop to the floor and try quickly pulling up the diaper and pants, at which point Princess G begins protesting - if she wanted them on, she wouldn't have pulled them off in the first place, right?

And what does Nancy do? She very calmly surveys the situation and says, totally deadpan, "Well, she must have been hot." That, of course, pushes Julie and I over the edge into complete hysteria - and I think one of the elves might have tinkled herself just a little.

We did actually still get to see Santa, once he finally stopped laughing. He even read the girls a couple of stories - probably thought Julie and I needed a little more time to get it together. The elves were still giggling as we walked away, candy canes in hand, tushies all covered, dreaming of sugarplums and future trips to the mall without full frontal nudity.