Besides the one about the big guy in the red suit who slides down your chimney with a bag of toys, I have expanded my lists of lies this holiday season in order to preserved the magic of Christmas. And it also got me off the hook from buying another Hallmark holiday tradition – Elf on the Shelf.
Blurring the lines between childrens’ fiction and advertising, earlier this month ABC ran a delightful 30 minute program about cheery little elves who visits your home with the job to watch over your children during the day and then report back to Santa at night on their behavior (good or bad). I know this is now a common practice in many homes, and I have had plenty of friends and neighbors share their success on how the elf helped reinforce good behavior with the threat of him communicating wrong doings back to the North Pole. But when you are watching this show with you children at 8:00 pm on a Sunday night and you have a 7:00 am flight to Phoenix on Monday morning, then you have to be spontaneous and harmonious in your answer when they ask, “will one of Santa’s elves be visiting us this year?” With no time to shop and 50 pounds of guilt already on me due to my upcoming week long work trip, the best answer felt like, “no, Santa only sends elves to the houses where naughty kids live. You two are very good kids and Santa does not have to keep an eye on you.”
My sincere apologies to anyone who had an Elf on the Shelf, as I am pretty sure my children looked at them with both judgment and jealously.
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