I’ve been following quite a few of my friends’ adventures with the elf on the shelf. We have several elves on our shelves, but I got them from my Granny Jane when she was in her morbid stage (maybe the last fifteen years of her life) and asking me on every visit which stuff I wanted when she died. One year, she was long done with the full Christmas decorating blowout, and she let me go through her Christmas stuff. We laughed and cried as we held up each treasure. I left that day with boxes of childhood memories, and she assured me in letters long after that it made her happy to think of us getting out her decorations and remembering Gigi. *sniffle sniffle*
Back to the elf on the shelf. Here are a couple variations I have heard:
Most people hide the elf each night (in a high place), so their kids can find it each morning. Apparently the elf spies on everyone during the day, and then reports to the North Pole at night. No touching the elf or it spoils the magic.
Some get their little elves into trouble, drawing moustaches (with white board markers, of course) on family photos, dumping out sugar on the counter, and emptying board games, leaving the elf nearby with the evidence (CSI: Elf Edition). When the kids wake up, they search the house for the elf and shake their heads at the trouble he’s been into at night.
Many of my friends are so creative with their elves and report their kids’ absolute delight finding Ernie or Poo-ga-loo, or whatever they’ve named their elf. It makes me wonder if I should put Great Gigi’s elves back in the game. These elves have got to have guts to still be holding their stuffing together. They survived my Aunts Nancy and Marcia, as well as my mom. When I was looking at the elves this morning considering the possibility of introducing find-the-elf-and-his-trouble, one fell over, and I gasped. He’s in fetal position, his little stuffed legs curled up between his enjoined arms. It’s like he knows. He’s right. I do not need to encourage any kind of creative misdemeanoring around here.
I’ve decided that our elves hide on the shelves in utter terror. If they were reporting on the Weems’ activity, I’m pretty sure they would need backup to carry the log book. If they were getting into trouble, unfortunately, it would go unnoticed amidst the other flooded bathroom episodes, advent chocolate stealing, and Jell-O explosion experiment (and that was just the last couple days). Furthermore, if there was any possibility of casting blame onto a stuffed, mute elf in fetal position, I’m pretty sure our elves would be tossed under the bus regularly. On the other hand, it might be a kind of early alert system, “Mom! The elves emptied the garage refrigerator looking for popsicles and left the frozen turkey under the Suburban! Don’t run over it!” Alas.
Sit in safety, dear Elves of Great Gigi, you’re in retirement.