We started doing the Elf on the Shelf when Andy was in Kindergarten. Back then there was no Pinterest for people to post their amazing and annoying elf antics, and parents weren't trying to one-up each other with naughty little elf pictures. No, the elf just came, watched the kids, moved around and then reported back to Santa. Charlie and I can barely remember to move the elf (except this year he finally wised up and put an alarm on his phone that has saved us so many times) so we certainly weren't going to join the ranks of crazy parents who have nothing better to do during the holiday season that let their elf mess up their kitchen or bathroom or whatever else and then actually have to clean it all up again the next day. So, we just tell the kids we don't have a naughty elf and that is the end of that.
Andy has always been skeptical of the elf. It's only in the last year or two that he hasn't announced that the elf freaks him out and hasn't been disconcerted by the elf's presence. I don't know if that's because he's just used to it coming or he's getting older or because Amanda feels the exact opposite. Amanda cannot wait to get up every morning to see if she can find the elf. As soon as her clock says 7:00 she comes into my room and asks me to help her get dressed. It took me a few days to figure it out, but it's because one of the few rules that the kids actually follow on weekdays is that they have to get dressed before they are allowed to go downstairs.
Amanda always wants to be the first person downstairs so she can be the first person to find the elf, so she wants to get dressed as soon as she is possibly allowed. She knows that she is not allowed to get up before 7:00 so I'm pretty sure every morning she just stares at the clock and waits. One morning she called out to me at 6:45 because she just couldn't wait any longer, and I had to take her downstairs in her pajamas and then bring her back up to get dressed. Another morning I couldn't function enough to get out of bed and help her get dressed so I told her she was allowed to go downstairs only to find the Elf and then she had to come back up to get dressed.
So pretty much every year there is something that makes us curse the day we ever started this "fun" tradition. But here's how one person can spoil the whole thing. Last week Andy told me that a girl in his class caught her mom moving their elf. Then he asked me if we move our elf. I should have come up with some great answer or one of those answers that are really a question, but all I could say was "Of course not!". Someday that kid is going to curse me for all the lying we have done to him in the spirit of the season. But I'm not mad at him, I'm mad at his classmates' mom. Doesn't she know the kids talk, and when she messed up in front of her daughter she really messed up in front of her whole class?
That is why you have to watch out what you tell your kids, especially your school-aged kids, because they're always hearing things from their classmates. Kind of makes you think homeschooling isn't so bad, until you remember that it's homeschooling.
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