Is Elf on the Shelf just a reason for parents to feel guilty? Photo / Getty Images
OPINION
Elf on the Shelf is beloved by New Zealand kids and whole-heartedly embraced by some parents. But what do you do if it’s adding to your pre-Christmas stress, asks Karl Puschmann
You’ve heard of Elf on the Shelf, but have you heard of the Parents on the Verge of a Mental Breakdown? Because that’s where I find myself. Teetering precariously on the tinsel-lined edge. And it’s all because of a little stuffed doll.
I know I’m not alone in this. For parents, the tyranny of the Elf on the Shelf phenomenon is inescapable. It’s an annual 25-day sentence of added responsibility that begins right on December 1, arguably the busiest, most stressful time of the year. It’s an extra little f*** you, just for the overworked, overtired, over-stressed and generally over-it parents dragging themselves to the year’s finish line.
Some parents don’t view Elf on the Shelf with these mud-tinted glasses. I envy them. And we’ll get to them shortly. But for now, I’ll quickly run down what Elf on the Shelf is, how it works and why it ruins my December every year, for those who somehow remain blissfully unaware.
Elf on the Shelf is a giant pain in the ass. I don’t know where it came from, when it started or how it took over the world but it did.
At its most basic level, it’s a 10-inch soft-toy elf that you have to hide around your living room every single night in the lead-up to Christmas for your children to hunt down and find the following morning.
At more-advanced stages of commitment, Elf on the Shelf is a daily event. An ever-changing, temporary altar of elaborate engineering and cheeky humour that combines to delight the children in your house and children of all ages who see the photos you post on social media.
At its worst, Elf on the Shelf is a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses-style social media torture that amply illustrates exactly how terrible of a parent you are as your failings are highlighted for almost an entire month on a daily social media schedule.
Now, I don’t want to come across like a Christmas Scrooge and sound all bah humbug about this, but I’m afraid there’s no other way to put it. Bah, humbug.
I’d say Elf on the Shelf haunts my dreams, but the more accurate version is that Elf on the Shelf interrupts my dreams. Twice this week alone its incessantly grinning face has penetrated my slumber, startling me awake in the dark hours of the early morning and plunging me into a deep panic as I remember that I’d forgotten to move the bloody thing before going to bed.
If you don’t have kids, this probably doesn’t sound like a big deal. Believe me, an unmoved elf is a cataclysmic event that has your innocent little children questioning their very reality. It’s much more than a glitch in their Matrix, it’s a red pill moment that threatens to expose not just the carefully curated Christmas illusion, but their entire world view. If they start thinking that the Elf on the Shelf isn’t real, then the next logical step is to work out that Santa isn’t real either. And if Santa isn’t real, then that leads to the obvious conclusion Mum and Dad are filthy liars. And that’s something they shouldn’t be working out until they’re teenagers.
And this is why I’ll clamber out of bed at Stupid O’Clock in the morning and make a bleary-eyed trip to the lounge while trying not to trip over the cat who is dancing between my legs. In hushed tones, I’ll curse heavily before stuffing our elf between the leaves of a pot plant or inside the popcorn maker before returning to bed where I’ll lie wide awake for a few hours before one of the kids rushes in to excitedly tell me they found Elfy hiding behind a pillow on the couch.
Yes, our Elf on the Shelf is called Elfy. A low-effort name to match our low-effort execution. It’s not that we don’t try. We do. It’s that we don’t try very hard. There are so many other things to worry about, big things, important things, that Elfy tends to get pushed out until the last minute.
“It’s great fun,” my pal Kris Tolson told me when I told him Elf on the Shelf was ruining my life.
Tolson has embraced Elf on the Shelf. Gone all in. After tucking his 7-year-old boy Arthur into bed each night, he gets to work constructing little one-shot scenes ready to be discovered the next morning. These often involve props and are heavily pun based. For example, the elf will be on a plate between two slices of toast with a note saying “I was cold but now I’m toastie”, or beside a note that reads “Oops I pea’d myself” with the elf sitting in a puddle of green peas. Like all the best Elf on the Shelf ideas, Tolson’s work resembles the single-panel cartoon format popularised by Gary Larson and his Far Side series.
“The biggest key is preparation,” Tolson says when asked how he does this night after night. “As soon as they go to bed, get on with it. Do it there and then. Don’t leave it till just before bed, which is what we used to do, because then you’re tired and can’t be arsed.”
Tolson’s preparations begin in November. As the silly season approaches, he’ll start thinking up ideas and jotting them down. To ensure he’s never stumped during December, he also records the best ideas he sees on his own social media feeds.
“I’ve actually had a couple of people sending me over photos of different ideas that they’ve seen online,” he says. “But I’ve not used any of them because they’re a bit rubbish.”
He’s been doing Elf on the Shelf for six years, which equates to 150 separate elf-based dioramas. He first saw the phenomenon on Facebook where the situational comedy of the elf appealed to his sense of humour.
“The first year was great fun, but it took up so much time every evening,” he recalls. “It was so time-consuming.”
The reason, he explains, was twofold. Firstly, he was an enthusiastic newbie making big, ambitious displays with the elf climbing walls like Spider-Man or abseiling the fridge. These days the elf gets into far simpler ways to execute mischief. And secondly, he fell into the same trap that many first-year elfers make by pulling double duty. Before making a G-rated elf display for Arthur, he’d make an adults-only version for Facebook with the elf in a variety of compromising R18 situations.
“I’d spend most of the evening setting up those ones,” he says with a laugh. “Then I’d have to take it back down and move the elf into a more family-friendly position for when Arthur woke up. It would take so long because we were doing it twice. After the first year, the novelty wore off and we didn’t do the adult ones again.”
But why do it at all? I mean, as a parent you sort of have to. But even though we’re both playing the Elf on the Shelf game, we are doing so in very different leagues.
“Honestly, the look on Arthur’s face every day makes it worth it,” he smiles. “It makes it worth putting in the effort that I have been this year. It really builds the excitement and magic of Christmas. Arthur just loves it.”
He makes a convincing case. As he talks about Arthur excitedly running into the bedroom to tell Kris and his wife Emma about their elf’s newest escapade, I relate. My own children do the exact same thing. Only, Arthur will be describing some hilariously sticky situation their elf is embroiled in while my kids will tell me Elfy’s hiding underneath a banana in the fruit bowl.
Like when I see an elaborate Elf on the Shelf photo or video on social media I get that sinking feeling that I need to do better, and bring more Christmas spirit into the house. Be a better parent.
“My biggest advice is just prepare. In the past, I’d spend 20 minutes thinking of something right before bed and then it would take sometimes 40 minutes to get it all set up,” he sighs. “But you realise it doesn’t have to be perfect. Kids just like the elf to be doing something. Preparation is key. Some of ours look complicated, but they’re really not. It takes about five minutes.”
I’m inspired. I’m determined. It’s fair to say his advice filled me with Christmas spirit. Later that afternoon I scroll social media for elf ideas to shamelessly rip off. I assemble a list. I check it twice. I am prepared. I am ready for a Christmas miracle.
That night, after the usual battle to get the kids to eat their vegetables and running through the routine of tooth brushing and book reading and tucking the kids into bed and then tucking the 8-year-old into bed again 20 minutes later and then tucking the 5-year-old into bed again 20 minutes after that and then tucking the 8-year-old into bed about half an hour after that, while sternly warning her that’s it and not to get up again, I am finally ready.
It’s been a long day. I am tired. I look at Elfy who has spent the day pathetically slumped over a framed family photo on the bookshelf. I pull up my prepared list of ideas and scroll through all the cheerful photos and delightful puns. They all require more effort than my zonked body has. My head hurts. I stuff Elfy into a shoe by the door and go to bed.
NY Times: A structured life with planned routines may ease ADHD symptoms.