VT Mamateurs

We have a new house guest. We’ve named him Hank. He arrived last weekend, whilst Ben was sleeping, and has been hiding about the house every day since.

You can imagine Ben’s surprise when he discovered Hank on Saturday morning:

Every morning since, we have woken to find Hank in a new spot. He’s very hard to keep track of!

One morning, we even found him amidst a tea party! Boy, those inanimate objects like their sweets!

Now, I know a lot of parents are against the whole Elf on the Shelf concept- I, too, worried at first that the whole idea was one giant “bribe”  schemed up to make kids behave. However, I stopped worrying about that when I realized Ben is way too little to grasp the concept of Hank flying back to the North Pole every night to report on his behavior to Santa. He just gets a kick out of waking up every morning and going on a “scavenger hunt” of sorts. Then, I REALLY got over all of my apprehensions when I saw how much Ben loves his new micro-friend. He becomes a little more obsessed each day.

In fact, he may have broken one of Santa’s rule and touched Hank once or twice

Thankfully, Hank doesn’t seem to have lost his magical powers (sigh of relief). We are thinking Santa may have overlooked this indiscretion because Ben was merely trying to show affection to Hank. Phew.

I could see how some parents could view The Elf on the Shelf as more of a chore. I recently read this article , from Parents.com, in which the author points out that it is just one more thing for parents to have to do every holiday season. Agreed. But, let’s be serious: at this point, I’m doing it just as much for myself as I am for my son. I LOVE seeing his face light up when he finally spies the Hank each morning

What about you? Are you an Elf-free household or are you Elfing it up? What do you think of the whole gimmick: ingenious, or merely commercialism at its worst?

-J

PSSST! If your household is Elfing it up, make sure you snap some pics of your mischievous little Elf…we have a photo contest forthcoming!