I wanted to do something fun and joyful for this year's holiday piece, so I figured I could have some fun with elves. I came up with this silly little story about an elf who had his own ideas for toys. I realized as I was working on it that there was a subtext to this plot. Perhaps it was all the recent tragic news about bullying, that brought it to mind. That sometimes your uniqueness makes you stand out. In some social situations there is such pressure to conform to some unattainable, undefinable 'norm' that any who is an exception is ostracized. But if you're an exception, are you then not the one who is exceptional? And that's a good thing to be.