Shelf, Elf-less

We’re heading into what has traditionally been, for me at least, The Most Wonderful(ly Stressful) Time of the Year. The ticking clock seems to tick ever louder, the way a timer on a bomb in an episode of MacGyver ticks. I mean, you know the bomb’s not going to explode, but it’ll come darned close. In the same way, I know I won’t have a total Holiday Meltdown (but I’ll come darned close). Christmas is a mere three weeks away, and our only decorations so far are the handful of Yule cards we’ve received, festively arranged in a pile on the hall table with the Acme circulars. Par for the Seyfried course, actually, pandemic or no pandemic.

But, thanks to Ya-Jhu, I’m not flipping out this year. She has NOT given in to the temptation to do what millions of moms and dads have done: purchase an Elf on the Shelf for Aiden and Peter’s enjoyment. I have nothing personally against the winsome gnome, but the labor involved in pulling off this bit of Christmas magic sounds quite overwhelming. Seems Mr. Elf moves around the house, observing the kids being naughty/nice, and (I guess) files a nightly report with Santa. Since he is a toy, the elf-moving is left entirely up to the adults, and must be accomplished without the cherubs seeing.

This amount of follow up has never panned out for me, because I am forgetful. One year I decided it would be lovely to move the figures in our Nativity scene a bit closer to the stable every night, and finally plop little Jesus into the manger late on 12/24. However, by 12/23 the shepherds and Magi were still on the far side of the mantel; this necessitated a rushed maneuver to get them all properly situated for the Big Night. Come Xmas morn, my offspring didn’t even glance in the direction of the creche, so focused were they on the loot under the tree. I made a mental note never to bother with THAT ritual again.

Along those lines, while once I filled the stockings with a fortune in little trinkets (we did stockings on Saint Nicholas Day, Dec. 6^th), as soon as we gave up that tradition, I never remembered to put candy in them until Christmas morning. Just before the kids woke up, I would hastily grab whatever Halloween candy was left over and stuff it in each jolly red sock. I learned that, as long as it was chocolate, it didn’t matter a bit if the wrapper had a picture of a ghost saying Boo! on it.

Clearly, any Elf in my charge would be left in one spot all season, and the boys would quickly learn that they could wreak havoc in any other room and never be detected.

Since our shelf is blessedly Elf-less, I will try to relax and enjoy this very different Christmas.

“The stockings were hung with face masks and hand sanitizer!” has a nice ring to it, right?