On the first run after power up, Elsie and Elmer were out of sync with Elfis. I changed the timing on Elfis (Arduino sketch available on this site). Elfis and Santa had exactly the same "delay" statements during setup, so Elfis got slightly behind on the first run through. I decreased the delay on Elfis so that he would respond to the sync pulse just like Elmer and Elsie on power up.