Premature Elf Relocation

I've been good.  I haven't once mentioned our Elf on the Shelf, and for a blog about parenting, during the Christmas season I feel you all owe me a debt of gratitude for keeping this thing to ourselves.  But last night I almost blew the lid off this whole damn thing.  Everyone knows - E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E knows - that the elf doesn't move until the kids go to sleep.  Then the little creeper takes off to report to Santa and comes back to commit some shenanigans before the kids wake up.  But yesterday she was in the pre-decorated Christmas tree, and last night we decorated said tree, being careful to place ornaments around her and not actually touch her (you know, to remove her magic with our coodies).  But that elf must be hitting the candy hard because by the time we were done that branch was under serious distress.  So the girls were corralled upstairs for bed time and I was tasked with relocating the decorations (we had all the expensive's on the bottom branches, most of them on the left side of the tree and for god's sake I couldn't find the end of the light strand to plug in the star).  In order to relieve the branch I pulled the elf down and set her on the chair - operating on the assumption that the girls were upstairs for the rest of the night.  Well after bath and teeth brushing and half way through our second story Gina realized that Rosaline had left her tiger and her lovey downstairs, so she asked me to fetch it.  Genevieve, trying desperartly to score extra Santa points in the final round, offered to go and get it for me.  What a sweet little girl.  Well, 30 seconds later the shrieks of horror echoed up the stairwell.  "JOVI MOOOOOOVVVVVEEEED!!!!"  Gina and I looked at each other in panic.  Up the stairs darted Genevieve, dashing down and passing her mid-way went Arianna - off to investigate on her own.  Fortunately they bought the whole "Jovi must have thought you went to bed" shtick, ignoring the obvious "he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake" doctrine.  It was a close one, a little too close.  So for all those elfing parents out there beware: premature elf relocation can happen to anyone.