Scarlett wants an Elf on the Shelf in our house this holiday season. Many of you are probably years deep into this Santa’s little helper phenomenon, but to my knowledge this is the first year Scarlett has been made aware of it. My first reaction to her request was that it would create a lot of extra work for me, meaning the people around me who are tasked with being my “hands.” In the grand scheme of things, moving an elf around the house so that he’s in a different place every morning doesn’t seem that complicated. But when you have a dog who eats garbage, and you yourself cannot go to the bathroom without being bodily lifted on and off the toilet, you may be more reticent to add to the list of things you are asking others to accomplish on your behalf.
Scarlet took immediate issue to this, and set out to reassure me that I simply didn’t understand how the Elf on the Shelf worked. “You don’t have to do anything,” she explained. “He moves himself. He’s alive.”
“Oh,” I said. “Does that mean he’s going to eat our food?”
“No! He doesn’t eat food! He just moves around and watches you and reports back to Santa if you’re not behaving.” Read More>