An Elf on the Shelf is a new rod for your back
This American tradition we’ve adopted here creates memories for children —and panic for parents, writes Sarah Caden
MY cousin sent me a text last week of the elf her husband had brought home. She’d asked for an Elf on the Shelf, but he’d never heard of it and thought she just meant an elf. So he brought home this elf, a fabric little fella, very cute indeed but not the elf, you understand.
Once I ascertained that my cousin was not in a rage or a meltdown that her children might reject another elf, I calmed myself. Because my instant reaction had been panic. The wrong elf ? Cancel Christmas!
Their elf, Michael, has been having quite the adventures since. He’s been to school with one of the kids, he made snow elves in flour on the kitchen counter one night, he fit into a jar on another night.
It’s been fun. I’ve seen the pictures. It’s a brain-racking exercise every night for the parents, though, and countless other Irish parents, to think up new ideas for the elf. And whether it’s a cute magic-moment-making act of love, or simply another pressure that we’ve placed on ourselves, I just can’t decide.
In case you’re out of the loop, The Elf on the Shelf is an American tradition that we have taken on with the same gusto as Black Friday and decorating our houses for Halloween.
Created by a Georgia mother of two, the Elf is a small fabric toy that appears in your house on December 1 every year, observing the kids’ behaviour and reporting back to Santa as regards naughty or nice.
The Elf comes with a book, which explains that the children must name their elf, that they must never touch him and that while they sleep, he will travel to the North Pole, report to Santa and return to a different spot in the house each morning. Then, on Christmas Eve, he’ll head off until the following year. It’s cute, there’s no denying it, and it promotes good behaviour, which can’t be bad.
In fact, in the words of its creator, Chanda A Bel: “Our goal is to imbue the idea of the North Pole, of selfless generosity. We stand for kindness, generosity and faith.”
We’re happy to sign up to that, as we worry endlessly about what to give our kids when we know they have more than enough, or puzzle over why we started presents from Mammy and Daddy as well as from Santa.
And yet, the Elf — in practical terms — is actually yet another job we’ve given ourselves.
It has become yet another task in our run-ragged lives. It is yet another anxiety and way to fall short in the parent stakes.
Spare a thought for the parent who wakes in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, having realised in their sleep that they hadn’t moved the Elf. Worse, what about the parent who didn’t stir all night, but woke to the confused wailing of children who have found the Elf in the same place as yesterday. Did he not go to the North Pole the night before? Has Santa missed a debriefing?
Even those who don’t forget have keeping-up-with-theElves anxiety.
Chanda A Bell created the Elf in a world before social media and before parenting became the much photographed competitive sport that it is today. The original “idea of the North Pole” didn’t foresee the daily postings from parents regarding the increasingly inventive and hilarious places the Elf has been found in the morning. It’s not enough any more that he relocates every night, he also has to be up to stuff. And it’s not enough any more that his antics are for the entertainment of your own children in the privacy of your own home. The Elf’s antics need to be shared — the Elf saddled on the back of a piggy bank, the Elf caught with his hands in the biscuit jar, the Elf in the cereal box, the Elf doing chocolate-drop poos on the kitchen table.
Even the celebs have got in on it and upped the ante. Robbie Williams’s Elf was posted online flying down the banisters with his hands on the reins of some chocolate reindeer. Emma Bunton’s Elf smashed and ate the homemade gingerbread house (another rod we’ve made for our backs) and Victoria Beckham’s Elf has helped out with making the morning coffee.
Of course the magic and mystery is cute for the kids, but there are moments when you have to wonder is it done entirely for their benefit?
This frantic creating of magic moments smacks a little of yet another way in which we are overcompensating for being distracted and busy, mostly two-working-parent households. We beat ourselves up for not being there enough, so we overdecorate the house as soon as Halloween is over, we get every bit of Christmas present possible personalised so that our kids feel special, we overbuy on the gifts, the grub, the grog, so that the picture all adds up to a family idyll of closeness and success.
And if making an Elf do yoga or seem to sip on Mummy’s wine makes everyone feel warm inside and contributes to us feeling like we’re doing a good job, then what harm? And if we can share our ingenuity online and thus bolster our self-image of slaying the parent goals, then all the better. Or are we just really good at finding new ways to test ourselves and fall short?
There is no Elf in my house, but not for want of trying on my part. The older child was scared of the magic when the Elf was introduced three Christmases ago, and didn’t like the idea of him sneaking around the house while everyone slept. I could see her point, though I felt a selfish pang of regret that I wasn’t going to get to show off my repositioning creativity and see their little faces light up on a daily basis.
So I got them a personalised red-felt wall-hung Advent calendar instead. Every night, every December, I put a tiny thing each into the next day’s pocket — a chocolate, a pencil, some rubbers, a Christmas top, some antlers. The other day, the elder got her first door key.
Yeah, I feel smug about creating the magic moments. Yes, they enjoy it but I get a lot out of it too, in guilt-assuaging terms. Do I worry that I’ve created a rod for my back? Of course. And maybe I like that because it makes me feel like I’m parenting better if I’m stressing more.
I tell myself, like the Elf parents, that I’m making moments, making magic memories that they will cherish in later years. Or it could be that I’ve entered in to the competitive parenting drive, despite my aversion to posting any of it on social media.
And the nights that I remember in a panic, just before falling asleep, I wonder if the modern parents’ guilt can be filled by calendars and moving elves.
We’re making moments, but we’re also making just another thing for ourselves to worry about getting right. Or wrong.
‘Emma Bunton’s Elf smashed and ate the gingerbread house’