Wishing For A Long Shelf Life

We have started a new holiday tradition at our house: The Elf on the Shelf. If you don’t have an elf of your own, you’ve probably heard about this fun yuletide endeavor – friends had told me about theirs in the past but we had not personally participated until this year, when my cousins gave our girls one for Christmas.

If you’re not familiar with the concept, here’s the deal. The elf (a cute, old-fashioned looking doll) arrives at your house around the holidays each year to watch your children’s behavior and report it to Santa each night – this is how Santa really knows who has been naughty or nice. Each morning, the kids must try to find the elf because when he returns from the North Pole each night, he appears in a different place in your house.

We are only on Day Two of this adventure, but it has already proven to be an interesting study in human behavior. Our oldest daughter, who is six going on 16, spied the elf first yesterday morning but didn’t say anything until she casually mentioned on the way to school that she had found him sitting on a shelf in the office. Typically more reserved and aloof than her younger sister – although just as excited about things like this – our eldest is ever the perfectionist. When we got home from school, she said, “I’m staring at the elf to make extra points” and then proceeded to say things like “I LOVE Santa!” to the elf. Brownnoser.

Our firstborn is usually very analytical and asks lots of questions – in fact, she thinks WAY too much for a kid her age – but she truly displays a child-like, accepting faith in relation to God and all things Santa.

Our younger daughter, on the other hand, has a VERY vivid imagination, so this elf thing is right up her alley. Since she goes to pre-K only three days a week, she was home all day yesterday with me and literally did not stop talking about the elf from the moment she woke up to the moment she fell asleep last night. Though her imaginative nature allowed her to fully believe that this elf was alive and watching her, she was obsessed with questions about his magic powers. How could he get out of the box he came in since there had been wires holding him there? Why could he hear and watch us but not speak himself? Would the elf close his eyes when she got undressed to take a bath because she didn’t want him to see her naked? These were just a small sampling of the questions I received in a constant stream all day long. I was about ready to tell her the elf’s return flight from the North Pole got delayed indefinitely in Newark.

Then came the most critical of all questions. Our youngest looked at me and said, “Katie told us we couldn’t fight in front of the elf, so where are we going to fight now?”

I think she’s missing the point.

However, she’s definitely found a new advocate in the elf. She understands that he’s watching her for naughty and nice behavior, but she also believes that she can report heinous crimes committed by the rest of us to the elf – like when I asked her to pick up her toys in the living room and got on to her when she refused. I explained that the elf isn’t watching me because I don’t get presents from Santa anymore and that, furthermore, I had done nothing wrong in asking her to help around the house, but she’s not buying it. You have to be scrappy and get help where you can when you’re the baby of the family.

Both girls were very excited to search for the elf this morning before school and in spite of the endless questions, I already love this new tradition. I know that we only have a few more years for them to believe in these kinds of concepts, and I don’t want them to grow up too fast and lose that sense of awe and wonder.

That’s what makes the holidays magical for all of us.