A mum who discovered her son's 'elf on the shelf' had mysteriously lost a leg was forced to spend hours concocting an elaborate cover story to keep the magic alive. Lauren Weir introduced the elf to her four-year-old son Tommy for the first time on December 1 but that evening she was horrified to discover that his right leg had torn off and was nowhere to be found.
The 30-year-old then scrambled to salvage her son's beloved elf by stitching the hole from his lost leg closed and coming up with a cover story to explain the missing limb. She staged a dinosaur attack using the schoolboy's toys and explained that the 'naughty' beasts had eaten the elf's leg - rendering him an amputee.
When Tommy expressed concern about how his elf would get around without his leg, the creative mum even 'put a call in to Santa' and had an elf-sized wheelchair 'delivered' the next day. Lauren posted a video about the toy's ordeal online with the caption: "This elf is going to take over my life," after spending hours stitching his leg, building a Lego wheelchair and staging the scenes.
But she says it is all worth it for the joy it brings the whole family. Lauren said: "I completely panicked. It was only day one and he was already so in love, I was like 'oh my god what am I going to do'. I didn't have time to go out and get another one.
"If I didn't fix it I knew he'd be devastated but I knew if it lost a leg he'd just accept it - but it needed to have a story about why it was gone. It was quite a clean break so I was like 'let me try and sew it' and thank god it worked out pretty well. It sewed up quite nicely, you wouldn't be able to tell that it's a botched job.
"I knew I wanted to do something along the lines of something had eaten it and we have a copious amount of dinosaur toys so I picked out a couple of meat-eaters and set them up. He was so excited when he came downstairs the next day, he was like 'where's his leg?'. I was like 'the dinosaurs must have eaten it!' He thinks it's great that his elf survived this dinosaur attack.
"He was like 'those naughty dinosaurs!' and then he and Iron Man together were beating the dinosaurs up, which was quite amusing. He was concerned about how the elf was going to get around only having one leg so I made a call to Santa in front of him and requested that he send some crutches or a wheelchair to the elf.
"Then the next day the wheelchair turned up so when he came down the elf was sitting in the wheelchair waiting for him - he thinks Santa's really good at making Lego wheelchairs. The wheelchair took ages because I was trying to be quiet sifting through the Lego because it's so noisy, trying to get the right colours because I wanted it to be Christmas colours - red and green.
"The dinosaurs were easy but sewing him up and building the wheelchair took a ridiculous amount of time - it probably took about an hour for each."
The mum of two says Tommy was so impressed with his elf on December 1st that he asked to take him to school to show his teachers and friends - despite the cheeky character drawing a moustache on him while he slept. After some show and tell in the playground, she then stashed the elf in her bag before giving it to her other son, eight-month-old Tate, to play with while she had a cup of tea at a neighbour's house.
But when she packed everything up to go home again she realised the elf's leg was missing and nowhere to be found - forcing her to come up with the elaborate cover story. Lauren said: "I had given it to my smallest son to play with at my neighbour's and then I was getting all my bits together to leave - I picked the elf up and the leg just wasn't there anymore.
"It's not at my neighbours, it's not in the car, it's just vanished off the face of the earth. The only explanation I can think of is that when I put it into my changing bag as I was leaving school it ripped off somehow. But I've searched where I parked the car and it's not there so the bin men must have swept it up.
"I'm praying that the leg doesn't turn up because then I'm really going to have to wrack my brain to cover that up somehow."
After saving the day with an impromptu dinosaur attack scene and Lego wheelchair, the magical character has gone on to bring more joy in the household. Creative 'elf on the shelf' scenes in their home since then include an 'advent calendar truck' delivery full of chocolate coins and sweets and fishing in the pet fish tank with a shoelace rod.
The mum plans on getting a second elf for her youngest son next year so the two boys can both enjoy the Christmas magic - despite admitting it has taken over her life this month. Lauren said: "I really wanted to keep the magic alive because the fact that he believes so whole-heartedly is just so heartwarming it makes me want to cry. He gets so excited.
"As soon as he opens his eyes in the morning he's like 'lets go and see what the elf's done'. He loves him, he tells him he's his best friend. It's the purest thing, it brings me so much joy.
"We'll be keeping this elf, he loves him so much even with one leg. My youngest son will have one next year as well when he's a bit older - hopefully that one will keep both legs. It's just thinking of things to do that takes up a lot of time but when he goes to bed I've got all the time in the world to think of things."
