I see several companies are making t-shirts with a picture of a giraffe and the caption “Moo…I’m a goat.” Where did this start and what does it mean?
And the elf on a shelf. I see stores selling these so people can join in the “tradition”. I understand that this tradition was actually just made up by some company a few years ago but what is the tradition supposed to be? What do you do with the elf after you bought one? I’m obviously assuming you put it on a shelf but is that it? Is that supposed to signify something?
It’s just a silly new tradition that kids enjoy. The book entails an elf that gets himself into mischief while on the job, which is to monitor the kids at an assigned house. Parents then get in on the act by getting their elf into mischief (replacing the stockings with underwear, turning furniture upside down, etc.). The elf then usually turns up in a new location each morning.
We have had an Elf for about 5 for 6 years, and that’s the first I’ve heard of the mischief angle. Frankly I am disappointed that I didn’t know about this earlier. I’m all for good-natured mischief. You can bet that our elf will now embark on mass chaos to make up for lost time.
Never had one, but I hadn’t heard about mischief either - most of the Facebook photos I see are of the “look at the clever way I found to hide Santa’s spy” variety.
Mostly, Elf on the Shelf is for mommies to take pictures of their latest good mommying to show Facebook what a good mommy they are. (I do think it’s a cute thing, but I swear half of the creative things moms do for/with their kids these days are primarily for Facebook.)
No, no, no…The Elf is for Daddies to leverage the fear of the all-seeing Santa for the molding of proper kid behavior. Didn’t clean you room…The Elf is watching. Punched your brother…The Elf is watching. The Elf is the physical manifestation of Santa’s threat that he knows if you’ve been bad or good. Sadly, my kids are too smart/old to fall for it anymore, so now it is just absurd places that the Elf shows up. I’m thrilled to add mischief to freshen up the whole Elf experience this year. I believe it is my job as a father to mess with my kid’s heads. Who else would get into an hour long discussion about hill cows.
For Trekkie kids, I’d prefer the Sehlat on the Cot. It’s six-inch fangs would dissuade kids from misbehaving much better than the promise of toys for Christmas. And it could wreak extraordinary mischief with its claws!
“Father! The strings on the Lyrette are all broken!”
Not a company, actually, but a local (to me) mom and sisters team who made their familiy tradition into a children’s book. No company would touch it initially, so they self published, self marketed, self everythinged. The rest, as they say, is history.
I can’t believe this came up. My oldest was talking about wanting to dress up as the Krampus for Halloween but it never happened. My boys love the idea of the Krampus! Since most of my family lineage is German, I may have to come up with a combination of the Elf and the Krampus. Maybe a Krampus on the Lamp-us.
I’m not primarily interested in why people choose to buy an Elf on a Shelf. I was looking for a simpler explanation of what you were supposed to do with an Elf on the Shelf.
It appears the explanation is you put it on display in your house and then move it around every night so the kids can look for its new location in the morning. And maybe do other stuff so it looks like the elf was playing pranks during the night. Okay, case closed.
Reminds me of those pictures of, say, Frodo, with the line “Use the Force, Harry” underneath it. You know - cramming in as many mistakes as you can in one thing.
If Diary of a Wimpy Kid is to be believed, you can also scare kids straight with a picture of Shel Silverstein. Particularly the one on the back of The Giving Tree.
