Elf on the Shelf: Pro or Con?

By Beth Hanning

This week, I saw a meme that stated, “Cheers to kids in the ‘90s and never having to try to come up with a spot for this creepy little guy.” And in the meme was a picture of the famous or infamous Elf on the Shelf. There has never been a truer statement about parenting. I do not know how everyone does it! And I recently heard that some families have multiple elves! So that family has to move two elves?

It is that time of year again where we will all be subjected to the crazy elf pictures when many of our social media friends try to outdo one another with their elaborate poses and shenanigans.

For those of you like me, who either have older children or no children at all, the “Elf on the Shelf” is a book that was published in 2005 by the genius mother-daughter team of Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell. The duo took out a 401k loan to launch this million-dollar industry. Genius, as this year, children are now asking for pets for their elves, which you can get on Amazon. Also, when you search “Elf on the Shelf” on the Amazon home page you get dozens of pages of items for the elves.

Now another business savvy entrepreneur has started a new business: Double Bubble Balloonery. She places the elves in a snow globe/balloon. I hope the elf comes in the snow globe and stays in that for the season. I hope, somehow, we can have moms do less.

I will be honest, probably due to social media, I started to truly hate this elf. I could not believe the elaborate pictures and things people did with this elf! As a mom, I was often overwhelmed with housework, my own job and the children’s schoolwork. I could clearly imagine lying in bed about to relax and remembering I did not move the elf. Or being lazy and texting my husband to please move the elf.

So the comments from past years were as funny as previous years. Some people tell me they do their best, just move it around. It seems my friends with smaller children are not as creative as others I have seen on social media. My favorite this year was a mom who taped the elf on the screen door and wrote a cute note: “HELP! We got locked out!” It was a handwritten note! Not an elaborately printed notecard. Kudos to that mom. That would have probably been me.

Another great comment was, “People use the elf for social media glory, and less for their children’s experience.” That was a good one.

In the scary world we live in, it seems the good outweighs the bad. Keep the elf and keep sharing the stories with me. I enjoyed hearing them. Just do not annoy me with the elaborate pictures. LOL.

Have a great week everyone.