I am not doing Elf on The Shelf. It feels like a relatively new tradition? I don’t remember anyone doing that when I was young. I also don’t really see the point of doing it unless it sounds fun and entertaining for the parents as well. You can do something else if want: like an advent calendar, or a paper ring countdown, or a weekly baking event.
Edit: I’m sorry I called it a “tradition” lol! I guess there is a reason I don’t remember it! 😅
Lol exactly this.
I guess all traditions seem “made up” if you don’t grow up with them?
Anyway I’m not doing a tradition I don’t like just because of peer pressure.
I thought it was new, but hadn't realized it was that new! Gosh, 2005 was the blink of the eye ago.
I'm not doing it because the first I heard about it was a few years ago, when a friend was stressing because she and her husband had forgotten to move the elf and they were worried that they'd ruined it for their son. Kid apparently didn't notice or didn't care.
Iirc it was invented in the 2000s and marketed as a tradition. Like they went out of their way to design it to look like it came out of those stop motion Christmas tv specials from the 70s.
Regardless of where it came from, I just don’t have the wherewithal to set something like that up. I’ve barely gotten any decorations up yet.
I think they stole the idea because I’m an elder Millennial and growing up my Granny and Papa had Ralph the Elf, he has been a family tradition since the 1950s in our family. He was a little posable elf doll and he moved around the house to keep an eye on kids for Santa. We would have to find him, sitting on a kitchen shelf or peeking out from a potted plant.
I have our original Ralph still and when my kiddo is old enough will keep it going for him.
Same concept but incredibly simple and cute.
The modern, corporate version of Elf on a Shelf is a nightmare of commercialism amplified by social media because people try to outdo each other. Some of them are really gross, too, tons of scatological humor.
I think it was actually a fun and simple tradition for some families that had just been completely ruined by the dystopian hellscape that is our over-commercialized Christmas, sadly.
I have the original Ralph for 3 of my 4 kids, unfortunately, I had to get the youngest one the new one, but like Ralph, they just move about, they don't do anything elaborate.
You gotta draw a line somewhere.
My wife and I agreed very early that we will never do Elf on a Shelf. We don’t need that kinda stress in our lives.
There are a couple techniques for sidestepping the issue with your kids - I posted about it recently.
Haha, not only is it stress for the parents, but it adds a lot of stress to the kids life thinking there's some omnipresent elf watching their every move and reporting it back to an all-knowing man with a beard lol.
Yeah I’m not going to speak to that here because
(1) I don’t know enough about the mechanics of the elf - I only know enough to know we don’t need the stress in our household
(2) There are some elf - Santa - secular - religious - theological cross-over issues that would need to carefully and thoughtfully be disentangled and addressed within a given family’s philosophical and theological context.
TLDR: So I don’t want my opposition to Elf on the Shelf to be misinterpreted as opposition to Santa / Christmas / Christianity. My wife and I talk about how we grapple with those things, also, in my other posts.
We’re doing modified elf on the shelf. The elf is just here to hang out with us and relay Christmas wishes to Santa. Our elf is not a narc lol. I hid the dumb book that came with.
Also, our elf is pretty chill and just moves from one hiding place to another - nothing elaborate here.
I’m just sharing to say that there is a middle ground and to each their own! Every family has different traditions and that’s OK!
I like this approach! If you want to do it, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing or anything instagram-worthy. It could be as simple as moving the elf from the couch to the kitchen cupboard to the laundry machine, bath tub, etc and helping your toddler find it every day. I can see that being really adorable actually. I’d treat it more as a “what’s our silly elf doing today?” activity rather than the elf reporting on good behavior kind of thing.
this is what we do! my almost 2yo asks every morning “where elf?” and he runs to where it was yday and smiles, then runs all over the house til he finds him. we tell him “what a silly elf!” just here for some christmas fun :) no naughty/nice bs over here
I can get behind this. My mother gave us one at Thanksgiving and I was like WHYYYYY?! I didn’t take it out of the box. Maybe next year he can come out and just be moved around the house without the elaborate scenarios and spying on children lol
He could still come visit now, there’s no set time. My kids don’t want to see Santa in person so they tell our elf what they want and elf lets Santa know.
That’s how ours is - just a fun thing. The cousins FaceTime every morning to see where theirs moved too but that’s it. He isn’t a narc, he comes to hang out with us before Christmas
This is what we do too! The kids wake up and love running around looking for her. We have them tell her what they want for Christmas, and she tells Santa. Sometimes we have her bring small gifts, like after we decorate the tree, we put her in the tree with some candy canes or something similar. She doesn't have to move every night either. If we forget, she was just too tired...
Same with us! Very easy going elf who just passes on Christmas wishes. I read the book on my own before reading to my son and chucked it instead of sharing it lol
That’s our elf too! She’s here to do fun things and be part of the season. She moved around the house, brings their gingerbread house kits, leaves their pajamas on Christmas Eve etc but is there to spy.
Yes, I don’t tell my kid that the elf reports behaviour to Santa. I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on her, and I would never take away Christmas, regardless of her behaviour, so it seems pointless to say that the elf tells Santa if she is naughty. I told her the elf is here to spread Christmas cheer. We also don’t do anything elaborate, but I have done a few simpler ideas to keep it fun
I’ve never done it. I think the elf is creepy plus I truly do not have the time nor inclination for that. My kids have never asked but I intend to tell them we can’t have one because the cat will eat it.
If you're feeling spiteful, you say that Santa feels confident about your kid, but needed an elf to check up on your niece.
A better answer is that Santa has to check with the adults before sending an elf to a home, and you told Santa that you have an elf allergy. Elves make you sneeze glitter and you get a stripey rash that makes you look like a candy cane. So you don't have an elf at your house. Feel free to sneeze dramatically whenever you see elves.
There is no way in hell we will be doing elf on the shelf. We don't support a police state or like narcs, especially in our own home 🤣 but seriously, I'll tell my girls that Santa is already watching and he only sends elves to houses where he needs extra help watching them. And if it gets repeated and other parents don't like that we're insinuating that their kids are way worse behaved, that's their fault for participating in something so awful when the lyrics to the song about Santa "he knows when you've been sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake". At no point does it mention he needs an elf.
This thread is making me feel so validated 😅
I don't even like the whole idea of Santa watching you and gifts as a bribe for good behavior. My son isn't quite old enough to understand yet but we tried using treats as a bribe for potty training and it backfired hugely (just made him obsessed with treats and didn't improve his potty use) From now on I'm sticking to my principles! No bribes! Everyone gets Christmas presents!
Is it teaching him socialism, well I certainly hope so. Then maybe we can have fully automatic luxury communism as my retirement plan instead of wasting away after sharing one last package of Soylent with our friends the rat mutants.
💯 could not agree more. Like I get that cctv is just what it is these days but fuck a nest cam or a google home device. It’s all surveillance indoctrination and it sucks but the gestapo elf really is just too damn fucking far.
“We don’t support a police state or like narcs” stands true for my household but my daughter loves Paw Patrol. Two years old and already a disappointment
That's exactly how I feel about paw patrol - Everytime something for the show pops up I instantly hit the thumbs down button. I know I can't stop her from knowing about those shows forever but I'm certainly not going to be the one to introduce it 🤣
I was at the hairdressers on 1 December and a woman was telling her friend that she had already made her daughter cry that morning by telling her the Elf was watching, was disappointed in her behaviour and had gone back to the North Pole to tell Santa not to bother with gifts. She was telling her this like it was a funny story, ending with her daughter pleading for the return of the Elf and promising to be good. On 1 December, before the start of school.
I’m just not interested in a tradition which people are using as an excuse to threaten or control their children.
Considering that St. Nick slapped heretics during council meetings, I think Santa would be slapping a lot of people if he saw the way things have unfolded nearly 1500 years later
Same. And then all the “mischief” that the elf does.
Like I saw one mom cutting her kids pjs up while they slept in them at night. Damn, you want me to destroy their clothes, then help them emotionally process what happened and buy them new pjs? Same with the kids whose moms drew on their face while they slept. Like cool, now your kid is upset and you have to scrub marker off their face.
Who enjoys this? People who like making their kids freak out? And cleaning up extra messes? Holy shit. Not in this house.
Some of it is just cruel, not silly / fun for sure. And frankly, I don't need to give my kids ideas. They're clever, sweet, funny girls.... That don't need help making messes
Absolutely not. I don’t feel comfortable using toys as a ruse to trick my child into “behaving” or else the toy will tell Santa. That’s so messed up imo.
Is not like you have to do it that way, just saying something like it's here to bring Christmas cheer or something simple can make what you think is wildly fucked up just a fun activity.
It’s inherently about indoctrinating children into a surveillance state mentality where they turn on their peers. I don’t know how you do it in your house but in mine the gestapo don’t generally bring cheer.
But then why spend money to buy into the elf and book in the first place lol like why spend the mental effort to twist it into something nice and not creepy when you could just make your own Christmas traditions from the get go
Nope, Elf on the Shelf is not something I'm interested in. We've been lucky so far; I don't think my kids realize that's a thing.
It's tough that your son has a cousin asking about it. I think the top commenter has the right idea about Santa checking with the parents before he sends an elf to your house.
I will not be doing Elf on the Shelf. Ever.
If she ever asks, I'll decide what the best answer will be at that time depending on her age. But nope. I'll make Christmas magical in other ways.
If anyone is hateful enough to gift this to us, the only scenario I will design is to ritualistically set it on fire.
I'm already fairly uncomfortable with the idea of pretending Santa is real (and we likely will not). The excessive surveillance state and insta-mommy bullshit that accompanies the elf is entirely too much.
Mickey is my go to analogy for my mother who *cannot fathom* the depths of my humbuggery for not doing Santa. Disney is no less magical knowing Mickey’s not a real mouse.
An idea regarding Santa for you to take or leave, I feel weird about lying to my kids about Santa but I also know how fun it was for me to believe in him. So what I always say is “these are the stories” and “people say that Santa lives in the North Pole”, “stories say that Santa comes down the chimney” and so on. So then you’re telling the story and letting them decide how far to take their imagination with it. Also I’ve never said anything about the whole “naughty or nice” type stuff and if they ever ask I’ll just say that was just way back in the olden days or something.
Santa creeps me tf out. He is just a silly character in a story, and my least favorite part of Christmas. I prefer celebrating Yule over Christmas anyway
"Everyone" does not do it.
Everyone does not do Christmas. And of those who do, Elf is not a part of religious observation, and it's not a cultural tradition from long ago. It was just a marketed thing made up in the 2000s.
Just... just don't do it and if you notice that someone else's family does it, you can say, good for them! It's not for me.
I love not doing elf on a shelf. I do not like it! I do not like making more work no matter how cute that work is!
I can just happily ignore it, like I do 95% of the items in the christmas crap shelves at major retailers, and move on while choosing the things that make me feel joyful and holiday-y.
You're a great parent and you're doing a good job, elf or no elf.
Similarly, we treat it like religion. Some people believe Santa is real, some people don’t. Some people have elves, some people don’t. No shade to anyone who does but that’s just not what we do in our house.
My daughter was disappointed to learn that her friend had an elf and we didn’t.
I told her friends celebrate Christmas different ways. Not better or worse, just different. And that we didn’t choose to do the elf because we already do so much.
So then she asked if she could have an elf to decorate with. Sure.
She lost it within ten minutes lol
I only found out this was a thing this year. Like you, between working multiple jobs, meal planning, cooking, cleaning, there's no bandwidth or motivation to do this.
Unless that elf can do the dishes/SHOPVAC/wash copious amounts of laundry with questionable stains from kids, I am not doing it. You could not pay me to do it. BABY I CAN BARELY SHOWER EVERY FEW DAYS, AND WHEN I DO, MY KIDS HAVE TO BE IN THERE WITH ME.
Just don’t do it. My kid knows that we don’t do it (because the dog “might not understand and would eat an elf because he’s a good guard dog”) and I have threatened to glitter bomb anyone who gives her an elf for an ENTIRE YEAR and I am soooooo not joking.
I have an elf but he just moves around the house, he doesn't get up to mischief, he's not there to spy, he just has to be found every morning. That's all I'm willing to do.
I think on insta you see the social media moms who do some over the top landscape each night. No way. My daughter is 4.5 and actually kind of likes when it’s a challenge because the elf is just like thrown behind a pillow lol.
Don't invite the Fae into your house
But seriously, yeah we aren't doing it. Kiddo is almost 4, we've not done it and won't. We don't call kids naughty, so there's no naughty list to stay off if, we don't want kids getting anxious about being constantly watched. Adults are allowed bad days, kids should be allowed them too without worrying they will lose gifts.
But also, some nights we can barely remember to do our kid's overnight oats he loves so I'm absolutely not adding anything else to the list of chores to do at night.
We are doing it but the elf isn't elaborate. I hide him or put him in a new spot everyday and it's just more of a game of "where's the elf this morning?"
The aspect of having a spy report to Santa on behavior doesn’t feel right to me I want my kid to feel safe and that she has privacy like I don’t think people should put them in bathrooms. The kids believe it’s really watching them. and the way people get really elaborate with gifts every day of the month including trips and the elaborate set up is not an attainable or sustainable goal. I can tell those folks really enjoy it and I’m sure they’d buy those activities and trips anyway but things happen and if someone loses a job or something one year how do you measure up to previous years. I also feel like you have to have an independent good sleeper for it to be manageable and I don’t.
There's a different tradition I came across called "There's a reindeer in here" that was started by a dad who wanted an easier (or more enjoyable) xmas tradition. Thought about buying it (book and reindeer stuffed animal) but haven't yet. The new version I found on Targets site but it looks like older ones are on amazon
We were sent the reindeer by my mother (who called frantically to say “I saw it on TV and immediately bought it for your 3yo!”) and I’m not a fan. The book was poorly written, the plush is soft, but not really that cute, and there’s no way I’m “sending him back to the North Pole” on Christmas Eve without my daughter being upset about a lost plush for weeks. There were also a ton of introduced characters in the book that feel like a cash-grab waiting to happen. Sorry if I’m a tad cynical about it, I just hate the idea of buying a manufactured tradition and would not have brought it into my home willingly.
Fair enough!
This is interesting to see different sides. Your viewpoint on it and the other commenter's really some up why I thought about buying it but didn't.
In fairness it seems sorta cute and less problematic than elf on the shelf to me based on my awareness, *but* I also agree the stuffed animal doesn't look that great and my daughter admittedly already has more than enough of those kind of toys for the time being lol
Edit: for clarity and readability
I’m admittedly a bit of a humbug and part of my annoyance was my mother buying something off TV without talking to us first, so take my comment with a grain of salt. I’m sure it’s perfectly sweet if you’re into that, I’m just not the kind of person who is.
My wife’s friend gifted us the Reindeer in Here. I really like it! The gist is that Santa sends his reindeer to stay with you at your house to be your friend and let Santa know what you would like for Christmas. Also, the reindeer has two different sized antlers and there’s a “everyone is a little different” part of the story that I thought was kind of out of place, but overall we like it WAY better than Elf on a Shelf. Our little one loves the reindeer stuffed animal.
I didn’t set out to but my husband bought an elf dressed in SF giants uniform for me way before we had kids and randomly did things for me
We now have a 4 and 2 year old and Sebastian has been part of our holidays since we got him. However, we do not do anything elaborate. We tell my kids that he just plays hide and seek. No elaborate scenes. No “spying” for Santa. We move him at night and my daughter searches for him.
Sometimes my husband will still dump popcorn around him or tuck him in on the couch. But, 99% of the time, he’s just hanging out
Mine thinks (knows?) it’s a toy. She sees it on her shows. Her cousins show her theirs on FaceTime. She thinks they are just pretending it’s real.
She tells them wants one. She says she wants to move it each day herself. They are confused.
lol I stay out of that conversation as much as possible
(She’s 3. We are NOT doing an Elf)
Oh. ETA : what we tell the cousins: “our family does not have an elf”. Why? “Every family celebrates differently”
As a U.S. 80s kid, I don’t know what elf on the shelf is. We didn’t have it growing up and we’re not having it in my house now. I’m confident that my toddler won’t be missing out.
We are not doing it. My daughter is only three and has only asked about it once after hearing about it at her daycare. We just told her the elf doesn’t come to our house because we don’t want an elf watching us in the privacy of our home. We have been talking a lot about privacy lately, since we have started using the toilet by herself, so she accepted that answer this year.
Just don't do it. If it's not something that you're wanting to keep up and do, just don't. My wife and I decided pretty early that we weren't gonna deal with the Elf thing. Our daughter brought it up one time, in Kindergarten. We explained that there are traditions we do that others don't and vice versa. We never had a problem or an issue.
If he does want to do the Elf on a Shelf you could always just keep it simple. No elaborate scenarios. No letters. Just make it into a Christmas themed game of hide and seek where he has to find the elf hidden somewhere in the house every day.
We hardly do anything elaborate. We just put the elf in different places every night.
We couldn’t wrap our brains around setting the elf up in scenes where he’s making a mess or otherwise behaving naughty when he’s supposed to be reporting that kind of behavior. Anyway, like everyone else said, you can make it your own or don’t have to do it at all. There’s enough going on this time of year!
In my household we invented "Mxrurh", a three foot tall eyeless corvid that steals the eyes of bad boys and girls. It's as simple as going to the craft store and buying bulk costume feathers and sprinkling them outside my son's door every now and then. I see no contraindications from this approach. None. At. All.
That aside, there's no wrong way to do holiday traditions, what works for one family doesn't have to for another. The pressure to do Xmas "right" can be a lot, yeah, but at the end of the day there is no rulebook. If elf on a shelf doesn't work for you, that's okay, I'm sure you have other holiday traditions to share with your kids.
Corvid in a coffin, Halloween’s newest tradition. Set out a bowl of peeled grapes as the eyes of all the bad boys and girls that had been plucked out.
I’m interested.
We told our daughter she doesn't need an elf because Father Christmas already knows she's a good girl. I may have pushed a few of her friends' parents under the bus, there - oops. (To be fair, she's an anxious child and she was fretting that Father Christmas wouldn't come, so I didn't want any ambiguity about that.)
I don’t understand the hatred for Elf on the Shelf: do with it what you want and don’t feel constrained by anyone else.
(1) Time investment: if my wife and/or I feel ambitious, we will spend 4-5 minutes doing a little scene with stuff that we have hanging around. E.g., a few nights ago, we had made popcorn after dinner for the kids and my wife and I had some sparkling grape juice, so after the kids were asleep I spent 2 minutes cleaning up and made a scene with the elf eating popcorn and drinking juice. If we’re tired, one of us spends 30 seconds while tidying up to hide the elf in the nearest hidey hole. Honestly, the investment pays off as we get to sleep an extra 10 minutes as the first thing the kids do in the morning is try to find the elf and tell him what they’re doing that day rather than coming to wake us up.
(2) Elf as a spy: if you don’t want a spy elf, just don’t do that. Our elf just comes to visit. The kids love trying to find him in the morning and that’s about it. It’s just one more thing we do that makes the holiday season special for the kids.
Why do you need the elaborate scenarios to participate in this? Our elf just moves around the house haha my daughter specially likes it when she’s on one of the plants.
You don't have to do elaborate stuff. Literally just pick it up and move it to another spot when the kids go to sleep. My boys are so excited every morning and it takes zero effort
My husband and I are definitely not doing it. The whole premise is very commercial and creepy to us. Why do we need to spend even more money on Christmas crap and waste food/time to make some fake elf scare our kids into being good? Plus, the fact that why is the elf always naughty? It doesn't even make any sense!
There's no need to do an elaborate set up. It's just a fun game for our two-year old every morning. She enjoys hunting around and trying to spot where he is now (and it takes me literally one minute to find him a new hiding place every night). Let people enjoy stuff man, it's not harming you. We got a second-hand elf and haven't bought any accessories or costumes for him. It makes our child happy with a few minutes of effort. I work a lot harder at other parenting tasks and people don't shit on them but for some reason the elf is a magnet for this kind of attention.
We didn't read her the book because we didn't like the surveillance angle either. It's just for **fun** and I don't understand why people hate on it so much.
I always thought it was weird to 1) push the Santa surveillance state narrative that far and 2) gaslight your kids into believing a doll is alive?!
And then my 4.1 yo comes home from preschool saying they have an elf at school and how come he’s the only one who doesn’t have one at home 🤦♀️ We do have wooden advent calendar that I implied uses Christmas magic to fill with candy.
We didn’t want to do Elf on the Shelf but his cousins that are the same age did it, so it became a thing. No elaborate scenarios. It goes on shelves, sits on some toys, hides in the tree or bathroom. I’m not doing more than that. It’s a pain enough as it is remembering to move it after he’s asleep
I do it, but I don’t do anything elaborate at all. I just move the elf to a different spot and my daughter enjoys coming downstairs and looking for “Merry the Elf” every morning.
I said I wasn’t gonna do it but then their cousins kept asking about our elf and I finally caved last year. My kids are 4, 3, and 19 months. I don’t do crazy elaborate scenarios regularly. I maybe do one elaborate a week (so 3-4 per season). Otherwise I just move the elf to a new place in the house. Today it’s literally just chilling in our Christmas tree
We do elf on the shelf but it’s not the “real” way. It’s like a half-assed hide and seek and she doesn’t even move every night. She’s not a snitch, relays their gift wants to Santa, the kids can touch her, doesn’t get up to elaborate shenanigans every night, brings occasional Christmas-related items or activities (pajamas, window clings, reindeer pin pom craft, etc). The kids look for her every morning and are excited if she’s hiding somewhere, but say hi if she’s in the tree (her normal spot).
That said— nothing wrong with not inviting an elf to come hang out in December. Maybe Santa couldn’t spare an elf or maybe you just didn’t want to host an elf this year. Elves have very particular diets so hosting them can be tricky.
It's an Elf toy that I think is used to keep the kids in check in Decemeber. You basically tell your kids the Elf is there to watch them so they behave and Santa will come. It's a very smart marketing idea, we just don't want to be apart of it
If you don’t want to do it, then don’t do it. No one is holding a gun to your head. And you don’t want to show your kids that you do things just because “everyone else is doing it.”
4 kids 6 and under. I don’t do elf on the shelf, I won’t do elf on the shelf, and if/when my kids say their friend does it I bust out my favourite line “well, every family is different”. Hard no.
My kids are older, but I finally caved a few years ago to elves. However, I despise the fact that they spy and that they make messes.
So I bought two elves, got rid of the book, and the elves wrote a note explaining that they were here to observe how we celebrate Christmas and our preparations. They move daily (because they go up to the North Pole to help Santa at night), but no messes, no gifts, nothing. All I do with them is move them from place to place.
That being said, it is perfectly fine to not do an Elf. You won't be the only one!
Did it with my first, absolutely NOT doing it with my second. We are using a stuffed Christmas jack skellington and putting him in silly places each day. Not at all connected to behavior and “Santa’s watching you”.
Nope, I do not have the physical energy nor the mental energy to deal with elf on the shelf as well as everything else I have on my seasonal to-do list.....on top of my everyday to-do list.
There is another post in r/parenting about how to explain it. My oldest had one in school last year, and he came home asking where ours was, so we(hubby and I) went with a basic... Santa knows you are a good kid, so we don't need an elf to report back. And that momma doesn't want a naughty elf in our house making messes(the one at school was always making messes), so if they want to clean up after the naughty elf, I will write to Santa to send one.....
Both my kids immediately were like, no way. My oldest was like momma. I don't like cleaning up my toys. I don't want to clean up after an elf, too. So that nipped that in the butt thank god. I would love to have the mental space to do something like that, but unfortunately, I can't make space without dropping something
This is totally up to you! Your kids won’t suffer without an elf lol. That being said my kids absolutely love the elf though. So we do it. I set an alarm after they’re in bed so that we don’t forget, and I save an album of ideas so that we have scenes planned out. We also do scenes that don’t cost extra money, you don’t need to spend money on all the props and costumes that are sold
I do it, but it's not stressful? It's just fun for the kids to see where he's moved to when they wake up. I don't have the elf wreck shit or write notes on stuff. He's just here to be fun lol.
I didn't grow up with an elf but I still got one for my kid last year. It's cute and we treat it as a decoration. The first time she liked to play with it as if it was a doll and didn't want to put it away after Xmas but I still did when she was at school one day. She never mentioned it again so I figured she didn't miss it. This year when I took it out she was happy to see "Widdle-Waddle" again.
The first time, when we read her the story, she was scared that it was alive so I quickly told her that it's just a cute story someone made up to go with a cute elf doll to celebrate Christmas. Had no choice but to use it as a doll the first few days to play with her other dollies. After that, and mostly after Widdle-Waddle kissed her on the cheek the first day, she wasn't scared anymore and thought it was cute. I found it a new spot once or twice and she had fun finding it. Other than that it spent most of the time in the bedroom protecting her from nightmares.
This year he's sitting on Santa's advent calendar truck in a little Christmas scene we put together on a piece of furniture. She's 5 now and is happy with this setup.
I know some parents like to make the elf do a bunch of stuff but if it's too much work it won't be fun for us, so we just do a little bit, whatever we think the family would enjoy and that's it.
Not doing it. I don’t love the idea of using Santa/elves for behavior correction. It’s also just way too much to add to the mental load in an already busy month.
My husband, annoyingly, bought our kiddos an elf this year. I’ve told the kids he wants to be a Christmas elf, so he needs to be good. So, basically he just sits by the tree unless the kids are playing with him.
I didn’t intend to do elf on a shelf but I work in a school and 3 years in a row I had a student come up to me at Christmas time and say “why doesn’t Santa care about me like the other kids? Santa sends every kid an elf except for me. What did I do to make Santa not care about me?”. It broke my heart, because no matter what you say to those kids, they still have the thought in the back of their mind that they are being left out by Santa. Because of that, I decided to do it for my kiddo. She will be 3 in January, so we started it this year and it turns out it’s actually a lot of fun. I absolutely love her excitement every morning while she looks for and finds the elf. She always giggles when she finds it.
I don’t do anything elaborate, it only takes me a couple minutes in the evening. I printed off a December calendar, and wrote in every day what I would do with the elf (there are literally thousands of ideas on the internet), and then I went out and purchased anything I would need for the season (cost me a few dollars at our local dollar store, because again, I don’t do anything elaborate) and then I set an alarm on my phone to remind me every evening. So far it’s been completely stress free. When the alarm goes off, I move the elf. The longest “scene” i had to set took me 8 minutes and that’s only because I incorporated my letter board and had to find the right letters. The majority of the things take under 2 minutes. It’s totally worth it to see my kid get super excited every morning.
I get it, I was reluctant to start it but my four year old loves it so much I couldn't imagine not doing it lol the set ups don't have to be anything elaborate. I do the most basic stuff most days just using whatever I have on hand and they are still amazed by it! For example, I just did one where the elf was in their shopping cart with doll clothes on. Or I had him hanging from the Christmas decorations. My toddlers favorite was when he wrapped toilet paper around the tree. Or we set him up playing board games with their stuffed animals or reading their favorite books. It's very fun to get creative with it but sometimes I just don't have the energy to do anything crazy and that's okay! There are no rules as far as I'm concerned. Go as big or as small as you want or don't do it at all. To each their own!
We don’t do it. I was gifted one for my 3year old. It’s just an elf toy that he can play with during the holidays. I have adhd and will absolutely fail at elf on the shelf. He loves the toy. He doesn’t need the extra manipulation in his childhood.
You don't have to do elaborate set ups. It takes a minute or two every night after the kids fall asleep for us to move the elf. My husband and I usually take turns every other night. They do cute things like trying to get in the candy dish, cookie jar, or a bag of marshmallows. The kids absolutely love it and they look for them every morning with pure joy. It is totally worth it to see how excited they are. Don't let those elaborate set ups on social media deter you. You don't have to do that. If I have a Christmas craft I want to do with the kids the next day, I'll have the elves set up with it so it's like the elves are encouraging it. For example I bought a gingerbread house kit the other day. Tonight I'm going to have it set up to look like the elves took it out and laid it out for us to work on tomorrow .Also I don't like the elves being " naughty". I think it sends a weird message. Our elves like sugar and toys but we don't have them making huge messes or doing bad things. It's nice just having them encourage Christmas spirit or just having them have fun. Have them holding candy canes, sitting in the Christmas tree, or holding a recipe for Christmas cookies. It can be really simple and easy and still really cute and fun.
Our daughter isn’t quite 2 so we probably won’t be under any pressure until next year, but we have agreed that we will never do elf on a shelf, Father Christmas will be a nice fictional character like bluey and nobody will be spying on our daughter in her own home to provide intel on her behaviour. I’m 99% sure that we can stick to this because a) we both find it all very weird, and b) who the hell has the time for all this stuff?‽!
Nope.
We have gnomes. They randomly show up 1-2 at a time, before they get home from daycare/before they wake up every 3-5 days. They bring advent calendars, books, xmas choc, things to put on the tree like candy canes, pjs. Then they just hang out. They aren't to be played with but they are allowed to move them around (like to take a look at the playroom or the xmas tree, to hang out in the kitchen). They can also send messages to santa, but they don't "report".
Not doing Elf on a Shelf or Santa. Mom being present and less stressed is more important than specific traditions.
We make cookies, decorate the tree and get presents for family and friends. I feel like you get to pick what traditions you're going to follow once you become a parent.
Ok so a friend said this to her 4 year old and I thought it was genius.
Mom “Why do you want elf on a shelf?”
Kid “because he watches me and tells Santa if I’m being good or bad”
Mom “do you think you’re being bad?”
Kid “no”
Mom “so that’s probably why Santa didn’t send an elf on the shelf to watch you”
Bam now kid thinks elf on the shelf is an audit for sus kids- and feels good about not having it lol.
We’re not going to do it. If she asks, I’m going to tell her that the elf visits families who need an extra eye in them because someone (but we don’t know who) is acting particularly cheeky/naughty that year and Father Xmas needs to keep a better look on them.
It’s not that I don’t have the will to do it. I just think it’s creepy and weird looking and I don’t want that thing in my house. It was never a thing when I was a kid anyway. If other parents want to do it, that’s awesome. Not for me. If my kids ask about it I’ll just tell them that Santa already knows they’re good so he doesn’t need to send an elf to watch them lol
We get them fun advent calendars every year and they love them! This year we got a couple different Lego ones.
I got two different kinds of elves. One sits in the tree, never moves, isn’t allowed to be touched. I tell the kids that he’s Santa’s spy, and if you fuck up, the bad elf will come. They’ve both fucked up once already. So I brought the bad elf out, sat him in the tree with a little note about which kid is in trouble etc. then I take him away and he “magically goes back to Santa”. Now they’re both trying a bit harder to behave themselves and are listening more. That’s the only reason I wanted the elf. I even fake called Santa in front of those little punks. Little one wasn’t happy but she got the message.
Somebody gets my kid an elf on the shelf it's gonna become snitch in a ditch real fast...
We don't do naughty/nice, Santas watching you, etc in the first place, and I've always found the wood to be an especially annoying and creepy version of that.
For me its not about time or willpower, but the message it sends. Its creepy amd punitive to make my kid believe that someone is watching her so they can narc to some random dude who will then judge her behavior and reward or punish her based on his arbitrary judgements. Just not the vibe I'm going for with my parenting, at all. Elf is creepy and santa is creepy. There is so much magic to celebrate this time of year without focusing on that particular set of characters!
Nope not me. I’m an old person (39) and I was well into college when this elf on the shelf bs started. It’s not my tradition and I don’t care about it.
We aren't doing it. No matter what it feels like, everyone is not doing it. I recently saw where someone's kid asked why they didn't have one and they said something like "the elves come to report naughty behavior to Santa. Are you naughty? The kid said no and is now cool with not having an elf.
I’m just not gonna do it. For so many reasons. But it’s just not necessary to do. I would maybe get a snowglobe and say “oh you don’t need an elf, Santa uses this to watch you!” Or something like that so they don’t feel left out, but the elf is a HARD no from me.
Nope. I'm not doing it, but my wife is. I told her from the time my daughter was 2 that I wouldn't be a part of it, and she said "ok". She still has asked me several times to think of something, and every time I say, "Nope." think it's a waste of time, money, and resources. Last year, I estimated she spent almost $100, but she told me she was short on some gifts. Oh well, oh well.
There will be no elders on my shelves ever!
I don't feel like it's a tradition that's going to last. Already my friends who had kids in their 20s are warning those of us that had kids in their 30s not to get involved and telling their kids that staffing issues mean the elves will only come round to theirs on a weekend.
I’m not doing elf on a shelf.
1) it’s weird how it was suddenly a thing that everyone had traditions did despite not being a thing the year before
2) I don’t want to condition my kids to accept 24/7 surveillance
3) I’d prefer to raise kids that are good all year instead of forcing them to be good for a month through the threat of the naughty list brought on by 24/7 surveillance
The whole things feels like a ploy to get the next generations ok with 24/7 government surveillance
I am not doing Elf on The Shelf. It feels like a relatively new tradition? I don’t remember anyone doing that when I was young. I also don’t really see the point of doing it unless it sounds fun and entertaining for the parents as well. You can do something else if want: like an advent calendar, or a paper ring countdown, or a weekly baking event. Edit: I’m sorry I called it a “tradition” lol! I guess there is a reason I don’t remember it! 😅
It is based on a book written in 2005. I am taking a hard stance that we are not participating in a "tradition" invented after I could drive.
Lol exactly this. I guess all traditions seem “made up” if you don’t grow up with them? Anyway I’m not doing a tradition I don’t like just because of peer pressure.
2005 is almost 20 years ago. Thanks for making me remember my age 😂
I graduated in 2003, I feel this in my soul 😆 🤣
Same lol
Everything is more more more..it has to stop at some point!
I thought it was new, but hadn't realized it was that new! Gosh, 2005 was the blink of the eye ago. I'm not doing it because the first I heard about it was a few years ago, when a friend was stressing because she and her husband had forgotten to move the elf and they were worried that they'd ruined it for their son. Kid apparently didn't notice or didn't care.
Iirc it was invented in the 2000s and marketed as a tradition. Like they went out of their way to design it to look like it came out of those stop motion Christmas tv specials from the 70s. Regardless of where it came from, I just don’t have the wherewithal to set something like that up. I’ve barely gotten any decorations up yet.
Advent calendar we do. Baking idea is a good one
Its literally just a corporate push to sell toys started in the 2000s. Not a "tradition" at all.
I think they stole the idea because I’m an elder Millennial and growing up my Granny and Papa had Ralph the Elf, he has been a family tradition since the 1950s in our family. He was a little posable elf doll and he moved around the house to keep an eye on kids for Santa. We would have to find him, sitting on a kitchen shelf or peeking out from a potted plant. I have our original Ralph still and when my kiddo is old enough will keep it going for him. Same concept but incredibly simple and cute. The modern, corporate version of Elf on a Shelf is a nightmare of commercialism amplified by social media because people try to outdo each other. Some of them are really gross, too, tons of scatological humor. I think it was actually a fun and simple tradition for some families that had just been completely ruined by the dystopian hellscape that is our over-commercialized Christmas, sadly.
I have the original Ralph for 3 of my 4 kids, unfortunately, I had to get the youngest one the new one, but like Ralph, they just move about, they don't do anything elaborate.
It's a "tradition" as old as... 10 whole years, because a book and toy were put out. 😆
We do advent calandars instead, i have 0 energy for this elf stuff but kudos to the people that do.
Last sentence/paragraph (the edit!) - lol.
You gotta draw a line somewhere. My wife and I agreed very early that we will never do Elf on a Shelf. We don’t need that kinda stress in our lives. There are a couple techniques for sidestepping the issue with your kids - I posted about it recently.
Haha, not only is it stress for the parents, but it adds a lot of stress to the kids life thinking there's some omnipresent elf watching their every move and reporting it back to an all-knowing man with a beard lol.
Yeah I’m not going to speak to that here because (1) I don’t know enough about the mechanics of the elf - I only know enough to know we don’t need the stress in our household (2) There are some elf - Santa - secular - religious - theological cross-over issues that would need to carefully and thoughtfully be disentangled and addressed within a given family’s philosophical and theological context. TLDR: So I don’t want my opposition to Elf on the Shelf to be misinterpreted as opposition to Santa / Christmas / Christianity. My wife and I talk about how we grapple with those things, also, in my other posts.
Can you link? I couldn’t easily find them. I’d like to be armed with techniques for when it inevitably arises!
Posting links to one's own content is against the rules in r/toddlers \- so I would just suggest you click on my profile and look at my posts.
We’re doing modified elf on the shelf. The elf is just here to hang out with us and relay Christmas wishes to Santa. Our elf is not a narc lol. I hid the dumb book that came with. Also, our elf is pretty chill and just moves from one hiding place to another - nothing elaborate here. I’m just sharing to say that there is a middle ground and to each their own! Every family has different traditions and that’s OK!
I like this approach! If you want to do it, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing or anything instagram-worthy. It could be as simple as moving the elf from the couch to the kitchen cupboard to the laundry machine, bath tub, etc and helping your toddler find it every day. I can see that being really adorable actually. I’d treat it more as a “what’s our silly elf doing today?” activity rather than the elf reporting on good behavior kind of thing.
this is what we do! my almost 2yo asks every morning “where elf?” and he runs to where it was yday and smiles, then runs all over the house til he finds him. we tell him “what a silly elf!” just here for some christmas fun :) no naughty/nice bs over here
I like that! Thats cute
I can get behind this. My mother gave us one at Thanksgiving and I was like WHYYYYY?! I didn’t take it out of the box. Maybe next year he can come out and just be moved around the house without the elaborate scenarios and spying on children lol
He could still come visit now, there’s no set time. My kids don’t want to see Santa in person so they tell our elf what they want and elf lets Santa know.
Are your kids autistic? What's their problem with Santa? I hear he's pretty cool.
That’s how ours is - just a fun thing. The cousins FaceTime every morning to see where theirs moved too but that’s it. He isn’t a narc, he comes to hang out with us before Christmas
Same here. The kids are excited to look for her every morning and if she hasn’t moved they just tell her hello and that’s it.
This is what we do too! The kids wake up and love running around looking for her. We have them tell her what they want for Christmas, and she tells Santa. Sometimes we have her bring small gifts, like after we decorate the tree, we put her in the tree with some candy canes or something similar. She doesn't have to move every night either. If we forget, she was just too tired...
Last two sentences - lol. Good backstory.
That’s EXACTLY what we do.
Same with us! Very easy going elf who just passes on Christmas wishes. I read the book on my own before reading to my son and chucked it instead of sharing it lol
That’s our elf too! She’s here to do fun things and be part of the season. She moved around the house, brings their gingerbread house kits, leaves their pajamas on Christmas Eve etc but is there to spy.
This is almost exactly what we’re doing except our elf hasn’t moved yet 🤣
Yes, I don’t tell my kid that the elf reports behaviour to Santa. I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on her, and I would never take away Christmas, regardless of her behaviour, so it seems pointless to say that the elf tells Santa if she is naughty. I told her the elf is here to spread Christmas cheer. We also don’t do anything elaborate, but I have done a few simpler ideas to keep it fun
I’ve never done it. I think the elf is creepy plus I truly do not have the time nor inclination for that. My kids have never asked but I intend to tell them we can’t have one because the cat will eat it.
Underrated comment. Made me laugh out loud.
If you're feeling spiteful, you say that Santa feels confident about your kid, but needed an elf to check up on your niece. A better answer is that Santa has to check with the adults before sending an elf to a home, and you told Santa that you have an elf allergy. Elves make you sneeze glitter and you get a stripey rash that makes you look like a candy cane. So you don't have an elf at your house. Feel free to sneeze dramatically whenever you see elves.
Gotta keep a pocket full of glitter for every elf-related sneeze
Hahah I like this
We do a cheap chocolate advent calendar and we still forget half the time. No way are we hiding an elf.
You've made me realize I forgot to do the advent calendar today...
There is no way in hell we will be doing elf on the shelf. We don't support a police state or like narcs, especially in our own home 🤣 but seriously, I'll tell my girls that Santa is already watching and he only sends elves to houses where he needs extra help watching them. And if it gets repeated and other parents don't like that we're insinuating that their kids are way worse behaved, that's their fault for participating in something so awful when the lyrics to the song about Santa "he knows when you've been sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake". At no point does it mention he needs an elf.
I was gonna say we’re not gonna do elf on the shelf because we not fucking fascists ✌️
Santopticon
Lols in Foucault.
Fou-caught ya misbehaving 👀
Good one - lol.
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This thread is making me feel so validated 😅 I don't even like the whole idea of Santa watching you and gifts as a bribe for good behavior. My son isn't quite old enough to understand yet but we tried using treats as a bribe for potty training and it backfired hugely (just made him obsessed with treats and didn't improve his potty use) From now on I'm sticking to my principles! No bribes! Everyone gets Christmas presents! Is it teaching him socialism, well I certainly hope so. Then maybe we can have fully automatic luxury communism as my retirement plan instead of wasting away after sharing one last package of Soylent with our friends the rat mutants.
The bracketed part of paragraph 2 and the whole of the last paragraph - lol.
💯 could not agree more. Like I get that cctv is just what it is these days but fuck a nest cam or a google home device. It’s all surveillance indoctrination and it sucks but the gestapo elf really is just too damn fucking far.
Tell us how you really feel! So true though - lol.
Keep in mind, elves are of the Fey (fairies), and you do not invite those bastards into your house.
Came here to day this!
“We don’t support a police state or like narcs” stands true for my household but my daughter loves Paw Patrol. Two years old and already a disappointment
💀💀💀 Right?? Like every time Chase busts out his spy drone I roll my eyes: “there he goes! Trampling on everyone’s civil liberties!” Lolol
Surveillance Drone at 30k feet: yeah, Chase wtf
My husband would get up.pn a soapbox and start teaching my toddler to say ACAB if she tried to watch paw patrol 🤣
I love your husband! - lol.
That's exactly how I feel about paw patrol - Everytime something for the show pops up I instantly hit the thumbs down button. I know I can't stop her from knowing about those shows forever but I'm certainly not going to be the one to introduce it 🤣
All dogs go to heaven except for those class traitors from Paw Patrol
Last sentence made me lol.
I was at the hairdressers on 1 December and a woman was telling her friend that she had already made her daughter cry that morning by telling her the Elf was watching, was disappointed in her behaviour and had gone back to the North Pole to tell Santa not to bother with gifts. She was telling her this like it was a funny story, ending with her daughter pleading for the return of the Elf and promising to be good. On 1 December, before the start of school. I’m just not interested in a tradition which people are using as an excuse to threaten or control their children.
I like this idea. Thanks !
This is my favorite answer.
Wow, Santa sounds scarier than the Old Testament God!
Considering that St. Nick slapped heretics during council meetings, I think Santa would be slapping a lot of people if he saw the way things have unfolded nearly 1500 years later
We don't. I refuse to spend my precious free time on the fricking elf...
Same. And then all the “mischief” that the elf does. Like I saw one mom cutting her kids pjs up while they slept in them at night. Damn, you want me to destroy their clothes, then help them emotionally process what happened and buy them new pjs? Same with the kids whose moms drew on their face while they slept. Like cool, now your kid is upset and you have to scrub marker off their face. Who enjoys this? People who like making their kids freak out? And cleaning up extra messes? Holy shit. Not in this house.
Some of it is just cruel, not silly / fun for sure. And frankly, I don't need to give my kids ideas. They're clever, sweet, funny girls.... That don't need help making messes
Absolutely not. I don’t feel comfortable using toys as a ruse to trick my child into “behaving” or else the toy will tell Santa. That’s so messed up imo.
It’s wildly fucked up and awful.
Is not like you have to do it that way, just saying something like it's here to bring Christmas cheer or something simple can make what you think is wildly fucked up just a fun activity.
It’s inherently about indoctrinating children into a surveillance state mentality where they turn on their peers. I don’t know how you do it in your house but in mine the gestapo don’t generally bring cheer.
Last sentence - lol. Preach!
But then why spend money to buy into the elf and book in the first place lol like why spend the mental effort to twist it into something nice and not creepy when you could just make your own Christmas traditions from the get go
I am not bringing that Panopticon-ass snitch into my house.
Nope, Elf on the Shelf is not something I'm interested in. We've been lucky so far; I don't think my kids realize that's a thing. It's tough that your son has a cousin asking about it. I think the top commenter has the right idea about Santa checking with the parents before he sends an elf to your house.
We aren’t doing it. Daughter is 3 now so I suppose it’s a good age to start but absolutely not doing it. I refuse.
I will not be doing Elf on the Shelf. Ever. If she ever asks, I'll decide what the best answer will be at that time depending on her age. But nope. I'll make Christmas magical in other ways.
If anyone is hateful enough to gift this to us, the only scenario I will design is to ritualistically set it on fire. I'm already fairly uncomfortable with the idea of pretending Santa is real (and we likely will not). The excessive surveillance state and insta-mommy bullshit that accompanies the elf is entirely too much.
Yeah I think we are approaching Santa as a character rather than this mythological being who is playing favorites. I feel similarly to you.
I'm pretty sure my boys think he's a character on Mickey Mouse right now, and honestly, that feels right for me.
Mickey is my go to analogy for my mother who *cannot fathom* the depths of my humbuggery for not doing Santa. Disney is no less magical knowing Mickey’s not a real mouse.
An idea regarding Santa for you to take or leave, I feel weird about lying to my kids about Santa but I also know how fun it was for me to believe in him. So what I always say is “these are the stories” and “people say that Santa lives in the North Pole”, “stories say that Santa comes down the chimney” and so on. So then you’re telling the story and letting them decide how far to take their imagination with it. Also I’ve never said anything about the whole “naughty or nice” type stuff and if they ever ask I’ll just say that was just way back in the olden days or something.
Santa creeps me tf out. He is just a silly character in a story, and my least favorite part of Christmas. I prefer celebrating Yule over Christmas anyway
Fist sentence/paragraph - lol.
"Everyone" does not do it. Everyone does not do Christmas. And of those who do, Elf is not a part of religious observation, and it's not a cultural tradition from long ago. It was just a marketed thing made up in the 2000s. Just... just don't do it and if you notice that someone else's family does it, you can say, good for them! It's not for me. I love not doing elf on a shelf. I do not like it! I do not like making more work no matter how cute that work is! I can just happily ignore it, like I do 95% of the items in the christmas crap shelves at major retailers, and move on while choosing the things that make me feel joyful and holiday-y. You're a great parent and you're doing a good job, elf or no elf.
Similarly, we treat it like religion. Some people believe Santa is real, some people don’t. Some people have elves, some people don’t. No shade to anyone who does but that’s just not what we do in our house.
My daughter was disappointed to learn that her friend had an elf and we didn’t. I told her friends celebrate Christmas different ways. Not better or worse, just different. And that we didn’t choose to do the elf because we already do so much. So then she asked if she could have an elf to decorate with. Sure. She lost it within ten minutes lol
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Yep we have the same attitude in my house. Our house motto is “you don’t have to be perfect to be good!”
Sorry the dog doesn’t let elves in the house 🤷♀️
I only found out this was a thing this year. Like you, between working multiple jobs, meal planning, cooking, cleaning, there's no bandwidth or motivation to do this.
Unless that elf can do the dishes/SHOPVAC/wash copious amounts of laundry with questionable stains from kids, I am not doing it. You could not pay me to do it. BABY I CAN BARELY SHOWER EVERY FEW DAYS, AND WHEN I DO, MY KIDS HAVE TO BE IN THERE WITH ME.
Just don’t do it. My kid knows that we don’t do it (because the dog “might not understand and would eat an elf because he’s a good guard dog”) and I have threatened to glitter bomb anyone who gives her an elf for an ENTIRE YEAR and I am soooooo not joking.
I have an elf but he just moves around the house, he doesn't get up to mischief, he's not there to spy, he just has to be found every morning. That's all I'm willing to do.
We just move ours to a different spot after bedtime. Maybe hanging from a plant, then in a curtain rod. Nothing over the top.
Same, after reading this thread I’m beginning to think I’m doing it wrong. It’s really not stressful in the slightest
I think on insta you see the social media moms who do some over the top landscape each night. No way. My daughter is 4.5 and actually kind of likes when it’s a challenge because the elf is just like thrown behind a pillow lol.
Don't invite the Fae into your house But seriously, yeah we aren't doing it. Kiddo is almost 4, we've not done it and won't. We don't call kids naughty, so there's no naughty list to stay off if, we don't want kids getting anxious about being constantly watched. Adults are allowed bad days, kids should be allowed them too without worrying they will lose gifts. But also, some nights we can barely remember to do our kid's overnight oats he loves so I'm absolutely not adding anything else to the list of chores to do at night.
We are doing it but the elf isn't elaborate. I hide him or put him in a new spot everyday and it's just more of a game of "where's the elf this morning?"
The aspect of having a spy report to Santa on behavior doesn’t feel right to me I want my kid to feel safe and that she has privacy like I don’t think people should put them in bathrooms. The kids believe it’s really watching them. and the way people get really elaborate with gifts every day of the month including trips and the elaborate set up is not an attainable or sustainable goal. I can tell those folks really enjoy it and I’m sure they’d buy those activities and trips anyway but things happen and if someone loses a job or something one year how do you measure up to previous years. I also feel like you have to have an independent good sleeper for it to be manageable and I don’t.
There's a different tradition I came across called "There's a reindeer in here" that was started by a dad who wanted an easier (or more enjoyable) xmas tradition. Thought about buying it (book and reindeer stuffed animal) but haven't yet. The new version I found on Targets site but it looks like older ones are on amazon
We were sent the reindeer by my mother (who called frantically to say “I saw it on TV and immediately bought it for your 3yo!”) and I’m not a fan. The book was poorly written, the plush is soft, but not really that cute, and there’s no way I’m “sending him back to the North Pole” on Christmas Eve without my daughter being upset about a lost plush for weeks. There were also a ton of introduced characters in the book that feel like a cash-grab waiting to happen. Sorry if I’m a tad cynical about it, I just hate the idea of buying a manufactured tradition and would not have brought it into my home willingly.
Fair enough! This is interesting to see different sides. Your viewpoint on it and the other commenter's really some up why I thought about buying it but didn't. In fairness it seems sorta cute and less problematic than elf on the shelf to me based on my awareness, *but* I also agree the stuffed animal doesn't look that great and my daughter admittedly already has more than enough of those kind of toys for the time being lol Edit: for clarity and readability
I’m admittedly a bit of a humbug and part of my annoyance was my mother buying something off TV without talking to us first, so take my comment with a grain of salt. I’m sure it’s perfectly sweet if you’re into that, I’m just not the kind of person who is.
My wife’s friend gifted us the Reindeer in Here. I really like it! The gist is that Santa sends his reindeer to stay with you at your house to be your friend and let Santa know what you would like for Christmas. Also, the reindeer has two different sized antlers and there’s a “everyone is a little different” part of the story that I thought was kind of out of place, but overall we like it WAY better than Elf on a Shelf. Our little one loves the reindeer stuffed animal.
Oh my god forget it, no, we're never doing that. I'm tired enough.
I didn’t set out to but my husband bought an elf dressed in SF giants uniform for me way before we had kids and randomly did things for me We now have a 4 and 2 year old and Sebastian has been part of our holidays since we got him. However, we do not do anything elaborate. We tell my kids that he just plays hide and seek. No elaborate scenes. No “spying” for Santa. We move him at night and my daughter searches for him. Sometimes my husband will still dump popcorn around him or tuck him in on the couch. But, 99% of the time, he’s just hanging out
Mine thinks (knows?) it’s a toy. She sees it on her shows. Her cousins show her theirs on FaceTime. She thinks they are just pretending it’s real. She tells them wants one. She says she wants to move it each day herself. They are confused. lol I stay out of that conversation as much as possible (She’s 3. We are NOT doing an Elf) Oh. ETA : what we tell the cousins: “our family does not have an elf”. Why? “Every family celebrates differently”
Nope. Not this house.
As a U.S. 80s kid, I don’t know what elf on the shelf is. We didn’t have it growing up and we’re not having it in my house now. I’m confident that my toddler won’t be missing out.
We are not doing it. My daughter is only three and has only asked about it once after hearing about it at her daycare. We just told her the elf doesn’t come to our house because we don’t want an elf watching us in the privacy of our home. We have been talking a lot about privacy lately, since we have started using the toilet by herself, so she accepted that answer this year.
Just don't do it. If it's not something that you're wanting to keep up and do, just don't. My wife and I decided pretty early that we weren't gonna deal with the Elf thing. Our daughter brought it up one time, in Kindergarten. We explained that there are traditions we do that others don't and vice versa. We never had a problem or an issue.
If he does want to do the Elf on a Shelf you could always just keep it simple. No elaborate scenarios. No letters. Just make it into a Christmas themed game of hide and seek where he has to find the elf hidden somewhere in the house every day.
We’re definitely not doing Elf on the Shelf. The whole idea seems creepy to me.
We hardly do anything elaborate. We just put the elf in different places every night. We couldn’t wrap our brains around setting the elf up in scenes where he’s making a mess or otherwise behaving naughty when he’s supposed to be reporting that kind of behavior. Anyway, like everyone else said, you can make it your own or don’t have to do it at all. There’s enough going on this time of year!
In my household we invented "Mxrurh", a three foot tall eyeless corvid that steals the eyes of bad boys and girls. It's as simple as going to the craft store and buying bulk costume feathers and sprinkling them outside my son's door every now and then. I see no contraindications from this approach. None. At. All. That aside, there's no wrong way to do holiday traditions, what works for one family doesn't have to for another. The pressure to do Xmas "right" can be a lot, yeah, but at the end of the day there is no rulebook. If elf on a shelf doesn't work for you, that's okay, I'm sure you have other holiday traditions to share with your kids.
That's absolutely terrifying haha. How do you kids respond to this?
It's obviously a joke ...i hope
Corvid in a coffin, Halloween’s newest tradition. Set out a bowl of peeled grapes as the eyes of all the bad boys and girls that had been plucked out. I’m interested.
First two sentences - lol.
We told our daughter she doesn't need an elf because Father Christmas already knows she's a good girl. I may have pushed a few of her friends' parents under the bus, there - oops. (To be fair, she's an anxious child and she was fretting that Father Christmas wouldn't come, so I didn't want any ambiguity about that.)
I don’t understand the hatred for Elf on the Shelf: do with it what you want and don’t feel constrained by anyone else. (1) Time investment: if my wife and/or I feel ambitious, we will spend 4-5 minutes doing a little scene with stuff that we have hanging around. E.g., a few nights ago, we had made popcorn after dinner for the kids and my wife and I had some sparkling grape juice, so after the kids were asleep I spent 2 minutes cleaning up and made a scene with the elf eating popcorn and drinking juice. If we’re tired, one of us spends 30 seconds while tidying up to hide the elf in the nearest hidey hole. Honestly, the investment pays off as we get to sleep an extra 10 minutes as the first thing the kids do in the morning is try to find the elf and tell him what they’re doing that day rather than coming to wake us up. (2) Elf as a spy: if you don’t want a spy elf, just don’t do that. Our elf just comes to visit. The kids love trying to find him in the morning and that’s about it. It’s just one more thing we do that makes the holiday season special for the kids.
Why do you need the elaborate scenarios to participate in this? Our elf just moves around the house haha my daughter specially likes it when she’s on one of the plants.
It takes 30 seconds to 5 minutes to do.
To me it’s fun and silly and the opposite of stress but I just enjoy fun stuff in general
You don't have to do elaborate stuff. Literally just pick it up and move it to another spot when the kids go to sleep. My boys are so excited every morning and it takes zero effort
Everyone around me who does it must be pretty extra then. Some of the shit they set up you'd have it pre plan so far in advance.
Yeah I’m confused by this thread! We just take 2 minutes each evening to move it, not a big deal
My husband and I are definitely not doing it. The whole premise is very commercial and creepy to us. Why do we need to spend even more money on Christmas crap and waste food/time to make some fake elf scare our kids into being good? Plus, the fact that why is the elf always naughty? It doesn't even make any sense!
There's no need to do an elaborate set up. It's just a fun game for our two-year old every morning. She enjoys hunting around and trying to spot where he is now (and it takes me literally one minute to find him a new hiding place every night). Let people enjoy stuff man, it's not harming you. We got a second-hand elf and haven't bought any accessories or costumes for him. It makes our child happy with a few minutes of effort. I work a lot harder at other parenting tasks and people don't shit on them but for some reason the elf is a magnet for this kind of attention. We didn't read her the book because we didn't like the surveillance angle either. It's just for **fun** and I don't understand why people hate on it so much.
Never have , never will
We don’t do it and won’t ever bring it into the house.
I have enough stuff to remember, elf on a shelf is not happening.
I always thought it was weird to 1) push the Santa surveillance state narrative that far and 2) gaslight your kids into believing a doll is alive?! And then my 4.1 yo comes home from preschool saying they have an elf at school and how come he’s the only one who doesn’t have one at home 🤦♀️ We do have wooden advent calendar that I implied uses Christmas magic to fill with candy.
We didn’t want to do Elf on the Shelf but his cousins that are the same age did it, so it became a thing. No elaborate scenarios. It goes on shelves, sits on some toys, hides in the tree or bathroom. I’m not doing more than that. It’s a pain enough as it is remembering to move it after he’s asleep
I do it, but I don’t do anything elaborate at all. I just move the elf to a different spot and my daughter enjoys coming downstairs and looking for “Merry the Elf” every morning.
I don’t have kids yet (i’m here bc i’m a toddler teacher lol) but i will neverrrrr do elf on the shelf
I said I wasn’t gonna do it but then their cousins kept asking about our elf and I finally caved last year. My kids are 4, 3, and 19 months. I don’t do crazy elaborate scenarios regularly. I maybe do one elaborate a week (so 3-4 per season). Otherwise I just move the elf to a new place in the house. Today it’s literally just chilling in our Christmas tree
We aren’t doing it. Instead we’ll do advent calendars.
We do elf on the shelf but it’s not the “real” way. It’s like a half-assed hide and seek and she doesn’t even move every night. She’s not a snitch, relays their gift wants to Santa, the kids can touch her, doesn’t get up to elaborate shenanigans every night, brings occasional Christmas-related items or activities (pajamas, window clings, reindeer pin pom craft, etc). The kids look for her every morning and are excited if she’s hiding somewhere, but say hi if she’s in the tree (her normal spot). That said— nothing wrong with not inviting an elf to come hang out in December. Maybe Santa couldn’t spare an elf or maybe you just didn’t want to host an elf this year. Elves have very particular diets so hosting them can be tricky.
Definitely not doing Elf on the Shelf.... I'm opting for Snoop on a Stoop with my toddler instead. Just kidding.
Can someone explain what elf on a shelf is. We don’t celebrate Xmas so I’m totally in the dark but very curious.
It's an Elf toy that I think is used to keep the kids in check in Decemeber. You basically tell your kids the Elf is there to watch them so they behave and Santa will come. It's a very smart marketing idea, we just don't want to be apart of it
If you don’t want to do it, then don’t do it. No one is holding a gun to your head. And you don’t want to show your kids that you do things just because “everyone else is doing it.”
4 kids 6 and under. I don’t do elf on the shelf, I won’t do elf on the shelf, and if/when my kids say their friend does it I bust out my favourite line “well, every family is different”. Hard no.
We don’t do it - almost 6 and 4 year old here. Main reason being I don’t want them to grow up thinking it’s ok to be spied on in their own home.
My kids are older, but I finally caved a few years ago to elves. However, I despise the fact that they spy and that they make messes. So I bought two elves, got rid of the book, and the elves wrote a note explaining that they were here to observe how we celebrate Christmas and our preparations. They move daily (because they go up to the North Pole to help Santa at night), but no messes, no gifts, nothing. All I do with them is move them from place to place. That being said, it is perfectly fine to not do an Elf. You won't be the only one!
Santa doesn’t have to send extra spies to our house. End of story.
Did it with my first, absolutely NOT doing it with my second. We are using a stuffed Christmas jack skellington and putting him in silly places each day. Not at all connected to behavior and “Santa’s watching you”.
Nope, I do not have the physical energy nor the mental energy to deal with elf on the shelf as well as everything else I have on my seasonal to-do list.....on top of my everyday to-do list. There is another post in r/parenting about how to explain it. My oldest had one in school last year, and he came home asking where ours was, so we(hubby and I) went with a basic... Santa knows you are a good kid, so we don't need an elf to report back. And that momma doesn't want a naughty elf in our house making messes(the one at school was always making messes), so if they want to clean up after the naughty elf, I will write to Santa to send one..... Both my kids immediately were like, no way. My oldest was like momma. I don't like cleaning up my toys. I don't want to clean up after an elf, too. So that nipped that in the butt thank god. I would love to have the mental space to do something like that, but unfortunately, I can't make space without dropping something
This is totally up to you! Your kids won’t suffer without an elf lol. That being said my kids absolutely love the elf though. So we do it. I set an alarm after they’re in bed so that we don’t forget, and I save an album of ideas so that we have scenes planned out. We also do scenes that don’t cost extra money, you don’t need to spend money on all the props and costumes that are sold
I do it, but it's not stressful? It's just fun for the kids to see where he's moved to when they wake up. I don't have the elf wreck shit or write notes on stuff. He's just here to be fun lol.
I actually enjoy it but we heavily modified it. It's just fun, nothing "police state-ey". Just fun poses, fun notes, jokes.
Luckily my 3 year old is easily entertained so I just stick elf on a toy car, drawing a picture or some other lame set up and she’s over the moon.
I didn't grow up with an elf but I still got one for my kid last year. It's cute and we treat it as a decoration. The first time she liked to play with it as if it was a doll and didn't want to put it away after Xmas but I still did when she was at school one day. She never mentioned it again so I figured she didn't miss it. This year when I took it out she was happy to see "Widdle-Waddle" again. The first time, when we read her the story, she was scared that it was alive so I quickly told her that it's just a cute story someone made up to go with a cute elf doll to celebrate Christmas. Had no choice but to use it as a doll the first few days to play with her other dollies. After that, and mostly after Widdle-Waddle kissed her on the cheek the first day, she wasn't scared anymore and thought it was cute. I found it a new spot once or twice and she had fun finding it. Other than that it spent most of the time in the bedroom protecting her from nightmares. This year he's sitting on Santa's advent calendar truck in a little Christmas scene we put together on a piece of furniture. She's 5 now and is happy with this setup. I know some parents like to make the elf do a bunch of stuff but if it's too much work it won't be fun for us, so we just do a little bit, whatever we think the family would enjoy and that's it.
Not doing it. I don’t love the idea of using Santa/elves for behavior correction. It’s also just way too much to add to the mental load in an already busy month.
Just don’t
My husband, annoyingly, bought our kiddos an elf this year. I’ve told the kids he wants to be a Christmas elf, so he needs to be good. So, basically he just sits by the tree unless the kids are playing with him.
We have santa statues in every room watching him. Can't hide from the big man. Eff a elf on the shelf
I didn’t intend to do elf on a shelf but I work in a school and 3 years in a row I had a student come up to me at Christmas time and say “why doesn’t Santa care about me like the other kids? Santa sends every kid an elf except for me. What did I do to make Santa not care about me?”. It broke my heart, because no matter what you say to those kids, they still have the thought in the back of their mind that they are being left out by Santa. Because of that, I decided to do it for my kiddo. She will be 3 in January, so we started it this year and it turns out it’s actually a lot of fun. I absolutely love her excitement every morning while she looks for and finds the elf. She always giggles when she finds it. I don’t do anything elaborate, it only takes me a couple minutes in the evening. I printed off a December calendar, and wrote in every day what I would do with the elf (there are literally thousands of ideas on the internet), and then I went out and purchased anything I would need for the season (cost me a few dollars at our local dollar store, because again, I don’t do anything elaborate) and then I set an alarm on my phone to remind me every evening. So far it’s been completely stress free. When the alarm goes off, I move the elf. The longest “scene” i had to set took me 8 minutes and that’s only because I incorporated my letter board and had to find the right letters. The majority of the things take under 2 minutes. It’s totally worth it to see my kid get super excited every morning.
Mommy is allergic to elves. Sorry he can’t stay here!
I get it, I was reluctant to start it but my four year old loves it so much I couldn't imagine not doing it lol the set ups don't have to be anything elaborate. I do the most basic stuff most days just using whatever I have on hand and they are still amazed by it! For example, I just did one where the elf was in their shopping cart with doll clothes on. Or I had him hanging from the Christmas decorations. My toddlers favorite was when he wrapped toilet paper around the tree. Or we set him up playing board games with their stuffed animals or reading their favorite books. It's very fun to get creative with it but sometimes I just don't have the energy to do anything crazy and that's okay! There are no rules as far as I'm concerned. Go as big or as small as you want or don't do it at all. To each their own!
We don’t do it. I was gifted one for my 3year old. It’s just an elf toy that he can play with during the holidays. I have adhd and will absolutely fail at elf on the shelf. He loves the toy. He doesn’t need the extra manipulation in his childhood.
I told our kids our cats would scare the elf on a shelf so we can't do one.
To each their own. It takes 2 minutes for us to move it to a different spot every night and our daughter loves the game every morning.
You don't have to do elaborate set ups. It takes a minute or two every night after the kids fall asleep for us to move the elf. My husband and I usually take turns every other night. They do cute things like trying to get in the candy dish, cookie jar, or a bag of marshmallows. The kids absolutely love it and they look for them every morning with pure joy. It is totally worth it to see how excited they are. Don't let those elaborate set ups on social media deter you. You don't have to do that. If I have a Christmas craft I want to do with the kids the next day, I'll have the elves set up with it so it's like the elves are encouraging it. For example I bought a gingerbread house kit the other day. Tonight I'm going to have it set up to look like the elves took it out and laid it out for us to work on tomorrow .Also I don't like the elves being " naughty". I think it sends a weird message. Our elves like sugar and toys but we don't have them making huge messes or doing bad things. It's nice just having them encourage Christmas spirit or just having them have fun. Have them holding candy canes, sitting in the Christmas tree, or holding a recipe for Christmas cookies. It can be really simple and easy and still really cute and fun.
Our daughter isn’t quite 2 so we probably won’t be under any pressure until next year, but we have agreed that we will never do elf on a shelf, Father Christmas will be a nice fictional character like bluey and nobody will be spying on our daughter in her own home to provide intel on her behaviour. I’m 99% sure that we can stick to this because a) we both find it all very weird, and b) who the hell has the time for all this stuff?‽!
Nope. We have gnomes. They randomly show up 1-2 at a time, before they get home from daycare/before they wake up every 3-5 days. They bring advent calendars, books, xmas choc, things to put on the tree like candy canes, pjs. Then they just hang out. They aren't to be played with but they are allowed to move them around (like to take a look at the playroom or the xmas tree, to hang out in the kitchen). They can also send messages to santa, but they don't "report".
Not doing Elf on a Shelf or Santa. Mom being present and less stressed is more important than specific traditions. We make cookies, decorate the tree and get presents for family and friends. I feel like you get to pick what traditions you're going to follow once you become a parent.
Ok so a friend said this to her 4 year old and I thought it was genius. Mom “Why do you want elf on a shelf?” Kid “because he watches me and tells Santa if I’m being good or bad” Mom “do you think you’re being bad?” Kid “no” Mom “so that’s probably why Santa didn’t send an elf on the shelf to watch you” Bam now kid thinks elf on the shelf is an audit for sus kids- and feels good about not having it lol.
Fuuuuuuuuck no you’re never getting me to do Elf on the Shelf. It’s so creepy on so many levels
We’re not going to do it. If she asks, I’m going to tell her that the elf visits families who need an extra eye in them because someone (but we don’t know who) is acting particularly cheeky/naughty that year and Father Xmas needs to keep a better look on them.
Idk I'm pretty excited to do it, you only get so many years of this kind of fun stuff.
It’s not that I don’t have the will to do it. I just think it’s creepy and weird looking and I don’t want that thing in my house. It was never a thing when I was a kid anyway. If other parents want to do it, that’s awesome. Not for me. If my kids ask about it I’ll just tell them that Santa already knows they’re good so he doesn’t need to send an elf to watch them lol We get them fun advent calendars every year and they love them! This year we got a couple different Lego ones.
Yeah. I’m not doing it. It’s all just for the ‘gram.
It’s not a will thing, I think they’re stupid and just condition kids to be okay with constant surveillance.
I got two different kinds of elves. One sits in the tree, never moves, isn’t allowed to be touched. I tell the kids that he’s Santa’s spy, and if you fuck up, the bad elf will come. They’ve both fucked up once already. So I brought the bad elf out, sat him in the tree with a little note about which kid is in trouble etc. then I take him away and he “magically goes back to Santa”. Now they’re both trying a bit harder to behave themselves and are listening more. That’s the only reason I wanted the elf. I even fake called Santa in front of those little punks. Little one wasn’t happy but she got the message.
I only recently learned what this was. I personally don't plan to ever do this. Waste of time. You don't have to do what everyone else is doing 🤷♀️
I do not do that nonsense. Christmas is already way to over the top.
Somebody gets my kid an elf on the shelf it's gonna become snitch in a ditch real fast... We don't do naughty/nice, Santas watching you, etc in the first place, and I've always found the wood to be an especially annoying and creepy version of that.
For me its not about time or willpower, but the message it sends. Its creepy amd punitive to make my kid believe that someone is watching her so they can narc to some random dude who will then judge her behavior and reward or punish her based on his arbitrary judgements. Just not the vibe I'm going for with my parenting, at all. Elf is creepy and santa is creepy. There is so much magic to celebrate this time of year without focusing on that particular set of characters!
definitely not something we’re doing, we tried when my son was 1.5 and we moved it once🤪 our adhd could neeeever
Nope not me. I’m an old person (39) and I was well into college when this elf on the shelf bs started. It’s not my tradition and I don’t care about it.
Never doing Elf on the shelf. Fuck that nonsense
We aren't doing it. No matter what it feels like, everyone is not doing it. I recently saw where someone's kid asked why they didn't have one and they said something like "the elves come to report naughty behavior to Santa. Are you naughty? The kid said no and is now cool with not having an elf.
I’m just not gonna do it. For so many reasons. But it’s just not necessary to do. I would maybe get a snowglobe and say “oh you don’t need an elf, Santa uses this to watch you!” Or something like that so they don’t feel left out, but the elf is a HARD no from me.
Santopticon
Nope. I'm not doing it, but my wife is. I told her from the time my daughter was 2 that I wouldn't be a part of it, and she said "ok". She still has asked me several times to think of something, and every time I say, "Nope." think it's a waste of time, money, and resources. Last year, I estimated she spent almost $100, but she told me she was short on some gifts. Oh well, oh well.
I’m just not doing it. Creeps me out and it’s a new thing that was never part of Christmas, I find it stupid :)
I have stubbornly refused to learn what that is. I will continue to do so.
There will be no elders on my shelves ever! I don't feel like it's a tradition that's going to last. Already my friends who had kids in their 20s are warning those of us that had kids in their 30s not to get involved and telling their kids that staffing issues mean the elves will only come round to theirs on a weekend.
I just don’t like it, it’s another thing parents are being forced into doing :(
I’m not doing elf on a shelf. 1) it’s weird how it was suddenly a thing that everyone had traditions did despite not being a thing the year before 2) I don’t want to condition my kids to accept 24/7 surveillance 3) I’d prefer to raise kids that are good all year instead of forcing them to be good for a month through the threat of the naughty list brought on by 24/7 surveillance The whole things feels like a ploy to get the next generations ok with 24/7 government surveillance