Elf Faux Pas

Here's Alex with Jolly the Elf. We've had Jolly (or one of his brothers) for three or four years now. To explain: we've had the same elf the whole time but we were slackers the first year and didn't write down his name in the book, as you are supposed to do. So, Alex gives him a different name when he returns to us every year. I think he likes doing that, it happens with his stuffed animals from time to time as well. (Aside: he's still calling them stuffed-up animals. I will be so sad when that last little guy expression disappears.)

We were away from home for Thanksgiving so I thought the elf would return to our house as soon as we got back from Louisiana. Alex said no, that it should be the 1st of December. I decided to go by his timetable. This year I decided to get creative (always a scary thing) and researched all sorts of different things to do with Jolly. For those of you who do not live with small children, the elf appears each morning in a different place around the house. He observes the behavior of the household, then flies home to the North Pole every night to report in to Santa Claus. Thus, he is in a different place every morning and the children must find him.

My creativity led to the elf faux pas. I saw on Pinterest or Facebook how some elves graffiti bathroom mirrors with a dry erase marker. Lo and behold, Jolly did this over the weekend. We had "Jolly was here," "Elves rule!" and "Merry Christmas!" on the bathroom mirror. Which was fine, and Alex was highly amused. Jolly just perched on the soap dish and looked pleased with himself. However, Jolly creeps me out just a little bit. He's got those eyes that kind of follow you around a room. While this is helpful for watching little children who are trying to get away with something, it is not something I will tolerate while I'm taking a bath. So, I scooped Jolly up and moved him onto a shelf in the living room.

You would have thought that I was putting him into the fireplace and cranking the gas logs up. Alex read the Elf on the Shelf book once, at least 3 years ago. All of a sudden he became this stickler for elf law and order. "No one can touch him, Mom, or he loses his magic!" When I asked how he knew this he said it was in the book AND everybody knows. I went to the book to check on this and to see if there were any loopholes. There were not. Fortunately the book is not one Alex has read again, so I bluffed my way out and told him that kids were not allowed to touch the elf, but in limited circumstances, parents may. He was finally convinced when I told him that the humidity in the bathroom might harm Jolly and somehow affect his flying ability. Now we know.

So, my review: Elf on a Shelf is a great disciplinary tool for this time of year but you've got to read the fine print!