Elf on the Shelf - don't be a jerk about it.

Posted by Ethne~

Hey guys, did ya miss me?  Lori leaves for her Christmas vacation soon, but I'm not too jealous for once since I love this time of year.  At any rate you get me now for a while.

 

So, what is there to comment about?  Plenty.  Let’s talk about the old Elf on the Shelf.  They’ve been getting equal parts notoriety and criticism this season.

 

I get the notoriety.  Target has been selling them in droves.  Our family has doubled up, with the grandparents’ additions of Lucy (at Thrifty Nana’s) and Lily Lolita (at Grandma and Grandpa D’s).  Trust me, our kids need watchers at all locations.  They’re bordering on coal.

 

But the girls love them.  They look for Lyle (our elf) every morning.  If we forget to move him, they comment about that too, to which I say, “that must be a really good place to watch you from.”  My co-worker and I (he has twins, too, plus another – oy) lament the stress of remembering to move the elf every night.  He has a post-it note on his bedside table to remind himself.  If I go to bed first, I text Shaun to remind him to move Lyle – this is modern marital communication, people, another reason to celebrate.

We were fairly creative last year.  His grand finale was to zipline down to the Christmas tree.  The girls still talk about this.  You can see the Christmas mess on the floor.

He also made a trip down to Omaha to visit Grandpa Paul and Grandma Connie - riding a buffalo bronze.  Whoa!

Shaun and I haven’t been uber-creative like some of those nerds from Facebook and Pinterest.  They make their elves fish out of the toilet and make snow angels on the countertop in flour.  I’d be worried he’d fall into the toilet water.  Lyle has brought the girls a Christmas fairy garden, though, which is pretty much the cutest thing ever, and when Easy Mac accidentally knocked Lyle on the floor and became hysterical, Shaun and I bandaged him up and Lyle wrote her a note, promising her Santa fixed him up.

Sorry about the photo quality on these; I took great pics on my good camera but couldn't get them to load AT ALL.  I don't know why I decided to take the worst ever pics on my phone at the time but too late now.

It says: "I brought you a Christmas fairy garden for your winter fairies.  Love, Lyle"

I don’t get the nastiness, though.  People say they’re creepy and that they’d never get one.  Whatever.  Shut the he## up then.  They were commenting about a few of those emails/reddits going around (google naughty elf or something, it’s funny) about elves being bad.  They said, basically, that elves were promoting domestic violence and that they should be banned – my words – but pretty much.  It’s true, I dressed Lyle up as Christian Grey for a blog challenge, with Barbie handcuffed to the bed, but the kids didn’t see that.

 

The lesson is, have fun with your kids.  You only get the Christmas magic for so long, and then they grow up.  If the elf can be a part of it, ENJOY IT!  If you want to keep the magic tied to Jesus, like we did, then make your story have Jesus connected to Santa – we told the girls that Santa helps kids celebrate Jesus’ birthday by spreading good cheer.  Lyle is part of Santa’s magic.  It’s beautiful and wonderful.  And not creepy at all.

 

But if you do want to see people being really creative, be sure to google naughty elves.  It’s good stuff.  Even the nerds on Facebook get major kudos - they give me all sorts of ideas.  The rest of you, just don’t be nasty about the elf.