There is a phenomenon that has being going on for a while that I essentially knew nothing about. And I feel so
ashamed. How can a woman who
guessed correctly months ago that Channing Tatum would be named this year’s People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” be
so behind the times?
I dunno; maybe I’m getting old.
But I didn’t know anything about this whole Elf on the Shelf
phenomenon. I just noticed it last year;
perhaps because people started taking photos of their Elves and posting them on
Facebook.
Some of them were cute. Pictures of little elves drinking hot
chocolate. Or sitting in front of a half-eaten
Christmas cookie. Or peeking out from
behind a book on a bookshelf.
But I’ve also seen some X-rated Elves. Bad Elves doing inappropriate things to Barbie. Or Drunk
Elves who had too much egg nog kneeling over dollhouse-sized toilet
bowls.
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| Bad Elf cleaning the toilet with your toothbrush? |
Methinks this was not the original intent of the makers of Elf on the
Shelf.
So I had to Google Elf on the Shelf to find out the back story. Ah, I thought, it’s a form of
parenting – a way to keep the kids in line.
During the month of December, anyway.
How else would Santa know if a kid was naughty or nice? He sends his tiny Elves to spy on little boys
and girls and then the Elf flies back to the North Pole every night to report
to Santa. Man, that little guy must get awfully
tired – he’s putting in a whole lot of frequent flyer miles.
When I pause to examine the whole concept, I find it rather creepy and I'm not sure I would've liked Elf on the Shelf when I was a kid. It's the sort of thing that nightmares are made of. I mean, didn’t everyone have to peek under
their bed to make sure there were no scary monsters hiding under there? Or if we were too chicken to actually look
under the bed, we’d take a flying leap onto the bed so our feet wouldn’t come
within a foot of the dust ruffle and, thus, no hand could reach out to grab our
ankle.
Yeah, what can I say? When I was young, I read way too many scary books
and watched way too many scary movies.
But back to the Elf on the Shelf thing.
If it had been around back in the day, I cannot remotely imagine my
mother participating in any such activity.
Taking the time to move an inanimate doll from spot to spot around our
house in those precious few moments she had to herself after she’d finally managed to get all four
kids in bed?
Not a chance.
Besides, we didn’t need a “Santa spy” to keep us in line. Our parents were all the spies Santa
needed. And it wasn’t even just for the
month of December that we toed the line.
Back then our parents weren’t our buddies or our friends; they were our
parents. We knew who was boss – and it sure wasn’t us!
Not only that, but Santa just knew if we
were on the Naughty or the Nice list because, after all, he was Santa.
Not that it stopped all of us from misbehaving. When I was five and my brother was six, he
was so concerned that Santa had gotten a bad report on him that he wrote in
marker all over his stocking. Part of it
was that he wanted to assure Santa that he was a good boy. But the other part
was that he didn’t want Santa mixing us up or making any goofs. John didn’t want to find some stupid gift in
his stocking like a girly hair ribbon or something. So he wrote on his stocking, “John. Boy.
Good.” And he wrote on my stocking, “Jane.
Girl.”
You notice he didn’t add the word "Good” to my stocking. Either I was good and he didn’t want Santa examining our behaviors any too
closely – or John was simply trying to fool the big guy into thinking the kid
who had “Good” on his stocking MUST be good and the kid who didn’t, well, not
so much.
On the other hand, it’s probably better that I don’t overanalyze the
mysterious workings of the mind of that long ago six-year-old boy.
I don’t recall how my parents reacted when they saw black marker all
over the stockings that our cousin had so painstakingly crafted for us, but I
don’t imagine they were calling him a “good” boy that day.
So I don’t know. I don’t think a
little Elf would’ve influenced my brother one way or the other. He was gonna do what he was gonna do – bad reports
to Santa notwithstanding.
But, hey, who am I to knock what works for some folks. And the Elf on the Shelf is kind of cute. You get to
name him and everything.
But, people, please. Stop making your Elf do inappropriate things to
Barbie and posting the photos on Facebook. You AND the Elf are going to wind up
on Santa’s Naughty List. And it’s not easy to get back on his good side. Just
ask my brother. John. Boy. Bad.
