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As children, Kevin Meredith and his identical twin brother, Keith, loved playing tricks on people. Now as adults they were at it again last week.

Keith donned an “Elf on the Shelf” costume Friday morning and positioned himself on the roof just outside the Plains School cafeteria, waving to kids and teachers as they arrived at school. “I wanted the kids to see Keith and they’d all think it’s me and then I’d come out and then they’d say who’s that?” said Kevin, the elementary school principal. Most of the passing kids immediately noticed him and greeted him as “Mr. Meredith,” which was accurate. But when Kevin Meredith showed up, most of the kids gave a double look between the Elf Meredith and the Principal Meredith, who added that this is the first time the school has had a life-sized human elf on the shelf.

Some knew of the principal’s twin, but others were amazed. A couple thought that it was someone wearing a Kevin Meredith mask. Nine-year-old Jackson Lumley said he had seen elves before, but never that big. One little girl thought it was an optical illusion, said Superintendent Kathleen Walsh, who was telling the kids that it was a real elf and that he was magic. “Who in their right mind would go up there and stand in the cold?” she asked the group of kids gathered directly below the elf.

“I thought I’d have to twist his arm to do it, but he said he’d do it right away,” said Kevin, who’s been the elementary school principal for three years. He was previously the high school principal for five years. The Meredith boys grew up in Plains. The twins had fooled a lot of people as youngsters, except their parents, who they couldn’t trick. “We used to switch classes. Once he took a history test for me,” said Kevin. “He got 100%, probably better than I would have got.”

Keith remained on the roof Friday for about 40 minutes, dressed in heavy winter clothes under his elf outfit. “I thought that it might take some convincing, but he was on board the first time I asked,” said Kevin, who was born 20 minutes after his brother.

The elf on the roof was a kickoff to Elf on the Shelf Fridays for the month of December. Kevin felt it was successful. The Elf on the Shelf will continue to pop up at the school, but in the future it will be Kevin. Each Friday, the Kevin Elf on a Shelf will be hidden somewhere at the school. The four students with the highest academic achievement in each grade for the week will be allowed to search for the elf. The winner will get a Horsemen and Trotter Proud ticket and a candy cane. The third and fourth grade students will be doing a “Mystery of the Elf on the Roof” writing contest.

“It was nice to see the magic of Christmas on their faces. Seeing some of their reactions is what makes the effort worth it,” said Kevin. “The spirit of Christmas is largely dependent on believing,” he said.

Plains School has several holiday events coming up. The sixth grade is holding a fundraiser where students bring in stuffed animals on Wednesdays and wear hats on Fridays for $1. The sixth grade students collect the money and use it to buy gifts from the Sanders County Sheriff’s Office’s Tree of Hearts program.

The school is having its Christmas concert on Dec. 18. Music teacher Loren Lauridson is conducting a concert at Fred Young Park on Dec. 14. On Dec. 22, the school is having “Christmas Around the World” with the teachers decorating their rooms according to a chosen country. Students will go from room to room and get lessons on each of the nation’s Christmases. Also on Dec. 22, from 9-11 a.m., the Llano Theatre in Plains will treat students from kindergarten to fifth grade to a Christmas movie.