When I was little, we didn’t have a pool. Honestly, we barely had running water half the time. And even though water cost money we didn’t always have, my mom would let us “swim” in the bathtub on hot days.

A whole ocean packed into a porcelain tub.

We thought we were living large.

It’s wild how simple things were. We were poor enough that a tent was sometimes our home, yet somehow we were happy. Not Pinterest-happy. Not curated-happy. Just… genuinely happy. Kids don’t need much. Back then, neither did adults.

These days everything feels louder. Bigger. Faster. Childhood looks like it requires bounce houses, smart toys, and Instagram-worthy memories every two hours. Meanwhile, the best memories of my life were built out of necessity and imagination, not budgets and Bluetooth speakers.

And then tonight, my kids reminded me of that all over again.

Kris and I pulled off a covert Elf-on-the-Shelf operation worthy of the CIA. While I distracted the littles by activating dance mode…yes, we danced like feral reindeer who’ve had too much hot cocoa, he snuck the elves out of our room and into the kitchen so Hailey could set up their “chaos scene” for morning.

But Lynnlee hasn’t been feeling well. She struggled to sleep and, wandered to our room, then noticed the elves were gone.

My heart DROPPED.

My first instinct? Oh no. The magic is dead. Christmas is canceled. Someone call Santa’s legal department.

But before I could even start sweating through my shirt, her eyes lit up.

“MOM! They’re GONE! They already went to the North Pole! THEY’RE SO SNEAKY.”

Harper jumped out of my bed, shrieking with joy, and the two of them giggled like they’d just solved a mystery. The magic wasn’t broken, it was amplified.

Turns out the elves don’t have to be perfectly placed to create wonder. They just have to exist.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it?

We think joy depends on doing everything right, the perfect setup, the perfect plan, the perfect childhood. But the truth? Kids will find magic in the cracks. In the bathtub-that-was-a-pool. In the tent-that-was-a-home. In two elves who disappeared before mom had her first sip of coffee.

Life in the 90s was harder in a lot of ways, but simpler too. We weren’t choreographing our joy. It just showed up, messy, cheap, and absolutely unforgettable.

And maybe that’s the reminder I needed today:

Joy has always been simple.

The magic has always been there.

We’re the ones who overcomplicate it.