Tate the Tardy Elf

This story is a collaborative effort of the Bolden Family. Each member of the family contributed in their own unique way. After spending years co-parenting, dividing holidays up between two households and deciding who's house Santa will visit on Christmas Day, we created a way to keep the magic alive for each set of parents. Given that Santa usually only visits on December 25th, often times one household was missing out on the magic of Christmas morning. With some thought and inspiration, Tate the Tardy Elf began making trips to our house the day (or two) after Christmas, bringing toys from Santa's sleigh. This created an opportunity for both households to experience the magic of Christmas, with all members of the family being together including parents, step-parents, siblings, half- siblings, and step-siblings. The desire to share this joy with each other led to the creation of our story. We hope you can be a part of the magic with us and soon Tate will be visiting your house as well.

Tate the Tardy Elf is a captivating story embracing individual differences in each other along with creating a heart warming story about Christmastime magic. As many families struggle with dividing the holidays between two households, children sharing their time with parents, co-parents, grandparents and/or step-parents, often times explaining the magic of Christmas becomes a challenge. If Old St. Nick visited Mom's house on Christmas Day, how do we encompass the same magic of Christmas with Old St. Nick's the day after Christmas at Dad's house. Tate the Tardy Elf brings this magic alive with a fun, entertaining story of Old St. Nick's visit on Christmas Day accompanied with a visit from Tate the Tardy Elf on the day after Christmas. Keeping the magic present, Tate the Tardy Elf allows children with two households to "still believe" when Old St. Nick makes two trips to their two separate households, once at Mom's and once at Dad's, giving both parents the opportunity to witness the Christmas morning joy when Old St. Nick (or Tate the Tardy Elf) makes another visit with his sleigh of toys for Christmas, or the day after.

The Bolden Family has collaborated on this project in order to share Tate's story. Desiree Bolden-Brown completed the story with her creative writings, while Quentin Micah Bolden illuminated her words with his illustrations. We look forward to sharing our tradition with you and hope you enjoy every minute along the way.