5 Reasons You Won't Find an Elf on Our Shelf

Like a lot of moms, I have a love-hate relationship with the holiday season. I love baking (okay, mostly eating) gingerbread cookies. I love decking the halls with lights and garland and bright red bows. I love watching all the sweet and sappy made-for-TV Christmas movies that run endlessly on the Hallmark Channel this time of year.

What I don’t love is the endless pressure to cram every holiday event and activity possible into one single month. Last night, just as I was silently congratulating myself for simplifying our family’s December to-do list, my daughter had a meltdown because I never bought an Advent Calendar.

Apparently counting down the days to Christmas by opening tiny little doors was something I shouldn’t have crossed off the list. “BUY ADVENT CALENDAR” is now scrawled across the top in bright red ink. At least by now they’re probably on sale.

But there is one holiday tradition that I absolutely refuse to get caught up in, and that would be the Elf on the Shelf. No way. No how. Never going to happen.  Here’s why.   

1. It’s creepy.

If you aren’t familiar with the Elf on the Shelf, consider yourself lucky. This special elf doll – which costs about $30 – is billed to children as a “special scout elf sent from the North Pole to help Santa manage his naughty and nice lists.” The idea is that the elf watches kids during the day, and then reports their behavior to Santa at night. The next morning he returns to your home, but reappears in a different spot than he was before.

My 5 year-old, who does NOT want an Elf on the Shelf, uses one word to describe them: “creepy.” I can’t say that I blame him. What 5 year-old wants a stalker like that watching his every move?  

2. It commercializes the holiday.

The Elf on the Shelf is fairly new, but the company behind the toy has already made big bucks from the commercialization of Christmas. Sure, I’m impressed by the mother-daughter trio who turned a cute family tradition into a massive moneymaker, but they’ve taken their branding efforts a bit too far.  

“An Elf’s Story,” an annual television special billed as family entertainment, has been described by The Washington Post as “just a half-hour advertisement for a book and a toy.” And, in an effort to capture an even larger share of market, the Elf now celebrates birthdays too. The Elf on the Shelf, it appears, isn’t as much about holiday spirit as it is about holiday spending.

3. It sends the wrong message to children.

The basic premise of the Elf on the Shelf is that it encourages good behavior because children know they’re being watched. This isn’t new; parents have used Santa and the threat of the naughty list to keep kids in line for ages. And after almost ten years as a mom, I totally get the sometimes desperate desire for good behavior at any cost.

But I still can’t get past the idea that my kids should behave simply because it’s the right thing to do. More importantly, I want them to learn that when they do make mistakes (as all of us will), they deserve to be treated with compassion and understanding. Christmas, at its heart, is a season that celebrates forgiveness and goodwill toward men. Judgmental elves who threaten punishment for each and every offense won’t teach my children the true meaning of the holiday season.   

4. It creates extra work for parents.

Let’s be honest, this is one of the real reasons to hate the Elf. Parents have to move it to a new location in the house. Every. Single. Night. And if Pinterest is any indication, there are lots of parents who get really super creative, with their Elves getting into all kinds of mischief for kids to discover every morning.

They do things like this:

or this:

or this:

At our house, on the other hand, it takes the Tooth Fairy almost a week to visit. If I can’t manage to flip a few dollars under a pillow on a timely fashion, how am I going to create whimsical scenes that look like they came straight out of Hollywood on a nightly basis? The pressure is just way too much.  

5. It leaves less time for other holiday traditions.

According to the Elf on the Shelf website, part of the brand’s mission is “cultivating a careful focus on products and traditions that create meaningful family memories.” But I’m not so convinced that this is what families need. We’re under so much pressure to create meaningful family moments – especially during the holiday season – that we no longer have time to simply let them happen.

If you love your Elf, as many families do, then by all means, have fun with him. (Even I get a kick out of this blogger's annual Inappropriate Elf Contest.) But I refuse to embrace the Elf on the Shelf mania at the expense of my family's other holiday traditions. There are only so many hours during the month of December.

And, besides, I need time to shop for an Advent Calendar. 

_{Photos: Main photo Elf on the Shelf in the 2013 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: iStock. Elf on the Shelf ideas: Melanie Stofka Pinterest. www.sheknows.com/parenting. Our Daily Does of Chaos.}