I can already see people getting their hackles up, before they’ve read past the first line. Elf on the Shelf?! Whatever you have to say, you’re wrong! Right? Haha, don’t worry, I don’t hate you for being better, more creative parents than me. I don’t hate you for showing off how much more you have embraced the Christmas spirit on social media. And I certainly don’t resent the fact that your children are clearly having a merrier month of December than mine.
Nope. Those are my mommy guilt issues. ?
I’ll admit, I had a brief period of time, when the Fournado was just a little toddler, that I considered indulging in this tradition. Thankfully, the Husband was very much not into it, and while I was trying to think up reasons to justify going down this road, I found myself coming up with lots of reasons to avoid the road completely. Because there are WAY more reasons not to start up with that stupid Elf.
Don’t believe me? Read on.
1. How many days are we doing this for? 24 goddamn days.
Because I have nothing better to do through the month of December. No, really.
2. Even more broken sleep.
I know there will be multiple nights when I go to bed and forget to change that damn Elf’s spot. And I will wake up at 3am and have to go and do something about it, because the kids wake ME up every day. And this will suck. PASS.
3. Explaining all the Elves on the Shelves…of the stores we shop in.
That are in boxes. For sale. You may not be able to see into the boxes, but if your kid can read, they can figure it out pretty quickly. Kind of wrecks the magic a little, no?
4. There’s only so much Christmas I can handle.
No, I’m not a total Grinch. I just happen to need occasional breaks in the crazy lead up to Christmas, and 24 nights of Elf posing will likely mean that I’m not in the mood for making salt dough ornaments or other crafts with the kids, or decorate Christmas cookies with them. Maybe that makes me an asshole, but at least I know my limits. Which leads me to my next point…
5. I don’t want to dread parts of the Christmas season, which is already filled with plenty of stress.
Whether it’s a week into my first year of doing it, or 3 years in, I just don’t want to be rolling my eyes and giving the finger to yet another obligation.
6. I will inevitably let my children down and have to lie to cover my tracks.
“What’s that, honey? The Elf hasn’t moved since yesterday? How strange! He must be sick. No, no he’s not dead…” Ladies and gentlemen, I already feel like a shitty mom half the time. I don’t need to add more weight to the guilt load that I carry on my back.
7. I would turn into a smug asshole, at some point.
I want to be clear and say that I don’t think all of you posting your Elf photos are smug assholes. I do, however, think it’s possible to slide in that direction, especially when you’re posting the photos all over social media. “Look at our house! It’s so fucking magical here, at this time of year! YAY ME!” *pukes glitter and candy canes everywhere* I would probably be one of those people to slide in that direction. So I ain’t going there.
I know there’s the whole debate over whether it’s acceptable to have this Elf spying on your children, in an effort to improve their behaviour through the season, but I kind of get that aspect of it, so I’m not against the Elf for that reason. And really, we hold Santa over our kids’ heads throughout the month (“He sees you when you’re sleeping/He knows when you’re awake/He knows if you’ve been bad or good/So be good, for goodness’ sake!” UMMMM, yeah.) for behaviour, so I just don’t buy that argument. So I’ll let it stand at 7 points, knowing full well that some of you out there may have this additional reason.
Love me? Or hate me? I can’t wait to find out…
(This post originally ran on The Joy of Cooking (for little assholes))
