It’s time to break out all the Christmas traditions, stories, fables and such, and it makes me wish I still had little ones.I inherited an entire box of my childhood Christmas books and my kids loved them, too. I think they were more excited about dragging that box down than about the presents to come. OK. I was too.
Under the heading of, “Dang! Why didn’t I think of that?” is Elf on the Shelf. Some very funny stories are circulating among my young mother friends about this marketing genius of a Christmas tale.
One friend found it on sale after Christmas last year and broke it out last weekend. After explaining all the details about what the elf can allegedly do and see, she added that you are supposed to name it.
Her daughter thought this was such a good idea that after naming her elf, she decided that she needed to name the Wise Men in the crèche as well. Their names? Blue Sky, Hot Fire and Hot Fire II. It made perfect sense to her.
Meanwhile, in another quarter, one mother of three active boys is grinding her teeth for ever starting the elf thing. She is far too busy this year to fuss with moving the thing around every night and is ready to throttle the next person who sends her a Pinterest pin showing another adorable way to set it up.
Another reminisced that her child’s elf, dubbed “Fondo,” stayed in the same spot (way high up on a beam) until Valentine’s Day.
Having done the bulk of my shopping already, I can’t manage to feel smug until I figure out what is for whom and if I have managed an equal balance for my daughter, her fiancé my son and his girlfriend. It’s all piled in bags in my bedroom at the moment just taunting me.
I am enormously proud of myself, though, for having gotten the Christmas lights up, the dead lights on my wreath replaced, and for making all the lights on my fake tree come on. They did not cooperate at first, but I was persistent and my cranky self served its purpose.
On Dasher, on Dancer, on wrapping and baking and crank up that Christmas music.
Jean Gillette is a freelance writer picking fake pine needles out of her hair. Contact her at [email protected].
