Just Say NO! (To Elves)

When my third child was around five or six years old, I briefly considered getting him an “Elf on the Shelf”. I quickly came to my senses when I realized that, in order to remember to move the elf nightly, I’d have to write it on my to-do list (this was before I had the whole “there’s an app on my smartphone for that” addiction) and that it would probably get misplaced somewhere (as all my lists are wont to do) and the child would see it, thus ruining the whole “This creepy doll moves itself nightly” idea.

As it turns out, that was probably one of the smarter choices in my life.

Because OF COURSE the overachieving moms had to get ahold of this. Now, not only does the creepy doll have to move, he does hijinks. Hijinks for cripes sake! There’s the cute kind (He plays cards with the other dolls and stuffed animals), the funny slash gross kind, (he’s pooping a starlight mint in the toilet, har de har har), the naughty kind, (he’s tp’ing the Christmas tree), and the naughty x rated kind, because we can’t just have nice things (he’s holding a $1 out to the naked, pole dancing Barbie doll).

Quick side note on Stripper Barbie…You just know that some smart ass Dad did that as a joke and that the Mom took a picture to post a “See what I have to deal with?” complaint but then all the people who have a sense of humor and don’t have a stick up our butt cracked up because, well, it’s funny. (For grownups, not kids! Geez people, get a grip.)

Anyway, so the damn creepy doll now does stuff and now I’m thinking, “Wait, I’m letting some stuffed creeper get away with behavior that my kid would get punished for, but it’s ok because it’s Ginger/Snowflake/Buddy (or whatever dumb, cutesy name they have) did it?” Yeah, this isn’t going to happen, sorry.

But wait, there’s more! If you order now, you can get the stuffed creeper to bring your kids more crap that they don’t need! Yes, that’s right, now they can bring movies, goodies, food, or toys, because Christmas isn’t already bringing a ton of shit that won't fit in your house until you rearrange the entire contents of every room just to be able to squish it in! It's almost as if someone said, "Let’ see, can we make December even more expensive? Yes we can!"

Plus, is anyone doing the math on this? If you start the elf when the kid is four, they are probably going to let you keep moving the elf until at least age 11 (because even if their beliefs change, they probably won’t tell you for FOMO on presents). This is eight years times 24 nightly shenanigans (provided the elf comes out Dec 1- 25) which totals 192. This is 192 different ideas that you have to come up with for a doll that is basically just Santa’s snitch.

I’m not saying that you couldn’t come up with that many ideas, I’m sure there are 1,000 web pages for this. There are probably Pinterest boards across the Universe pinned with smart, creative things to make the Elf antics fresh and imaginative. Just as I’m sure that people who pin these ideas might actually use them and not just pin 400 things that they have good intentions of cooking/making/doing, but then never do. (Ahem, not that I would ever do that!) It just seems like a lot of, well, effort. And time. And those are two things that I seriously lack in December. Because this month is already jam packed with tree decorating, ornament making, cookie baking, party hosting, present wrapping, and stress eating and I don’t think I have any spare minutes to fit in “creating unnecessary stress due to forgetting about moving an elf” every night. (Let’s be honest, in this household we’d probably have a “lazy elf” or at least, that’s what we’d have to tell the kids when he was in the same spot for twelve days.)

Yeah, this looks about right.
(Image credit: The Internet)

                As if this whole over the top crap wasn’t enough though, now those kids are starting to tell other kids what those damn elves are doing. This, in turn, is making all non-elf households feel the pressure. Like when the five year old comes home and tells me we need to get an elf on the shelf like kid x has. Uh, hell to the no. We don’t need this additional pressure. Now the overachieving “I have time to stay up until 3 AM every night creating elf miracles” is starting to affect the ‘I’m minding my own elf business” business.

Frankly, it’s just wrong.

So people, do your part, by just saying, “NO!” to elves. And just to be safe, maybe say no to shelves too. Honestly, what good are they anyway? They just fill up with dust catching junk and knick knacks. (And creepy, smirking elves that are playing hide and snitch!)

Hell no, we don't, uh, move from this spot until Christmas!
(Image credit: The Internet for the win!)

 

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