Holiday Magic
The holiday season is nearly upon us. If you’re a parent or grandparent who strives to keep the Christmas magic alive for the kiddos, you’ll find this article highly relatable. I wrote this essay back in July for paid subscribers only. Here, I’m sharing it publicly for the very first time.
SPOILER ALERT! This article is intended for parents only. Do not let young children read this.
The Elf on the Shelf. What a racket. Other parents warned me never to get one. “It’s a hassle,” they’d claim. “It will ruin your entire holiday season.”
“What’s the big deal?” I thought to myself, assuming elf owners were merely being dramatic. I figured these elves just sat on a shelf, observing children from afar and reporting back to Santa who has been naughty or nice. Turns out, owning an elf is a lot of work.
The first headache is deciding whether to get a male elf or a female elf. So, I decided to take inventory. Santa is male. The Tooth Fairy is female. I’m unsure about the leprechaun’s gender, but I’m pretty sure the Easter Bunny is gender-fluid and goes by “They.”
That being the case, I figured we could tip the estrogen scales a little bit in my daughter’s favor. So, I bought Sky a female elf. Honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference between the boy elves and the girl elves anyway. It was like looking at a fish or a bird – they all looked the same to me.
Step number two was finding a suitable name for an elf. I simply defaulted to Sky’s imagination. After some thinking, she settled on Marshmallow, and I found it fitting.
Sky lives at her mom’s house every other week since we have shared custody. For convenience, they splurged on a second elf to keep at her mom’s house. I asked Sky what she named her other elf, and she said its name is Kentucky Fried Elf. KFE for short. I asked her why, and she couldn’t really think of an answer. Ironically, since naming it Kentucky Fried Elf, Sky has become a vegetarian. I’m sure a therapist will milk that for a few sessions when Sky is older.
As for Marshmallow, she came sporting a prominent tag. It draped from the back of her neck like a scratchy white scarf. For the first holiday season Marshmallow lived with us, I didn’t pay any attention to the tag. It wasn’t until recently that I noticed the tag read, “Made in China.”
“Son of a bitch,” I thought to myself as I rolled my eyes. “How dumb are these manufacturers?” Children are observant, and most can read. Discrepancies like this might cause a child to call hogwash on Santa and the season’s magic. I mean, China has been part of the United Nations since 1971, but I’m fairly certain they have no ties to the North Pole.
Hoping Sky hadn’t noticed the tag, I tried ripping it off the elf’s neck. A smug lady at the Chinese factory must have used the world’s strongest stitching because the tag wouldn’t budge. I pulled harder, and some fabric began to rip. Nothing causes childhood trauma quite like a decapitated elf. So, I opted for brains over muscle and delicately cut off the tag with scissors.
The biggest inconvenience of owning an elf is remembering to move it each night. That’s when they get into shenanigans, you know. It only happens when the kids are nestled all snug in their beds. Come morning, the children wake up eager to see what mischief the elf has caused.
For example, Marshmallow has been found making snow angels on a pile of sugar in the kitchen. She’s been found on a hanger, riding a zipline of tinsel from the light fixture to the Christmas tree. She’s even been caught playing video games on the couch with the rest of Sky’s stuffed animals.
It requires a lot of creativity to come up with fresh ideas each night. There are online forums dedicated to giving parents ideas. There are even YouTube videos that offer suggestions. Sky came across one of these videos and looked perplexed. She didn’t ask any questions, but I could tell she wondered why parents would need creative ideas regarding elves and their shelves.
I quickly snatched the remote from her hand and changed the channel. My TV landed on a horror movie depicting an evil Santa Claus who was maniacally laughing as skeleton reindeer pulled his sleigh through the night.
“Crap,” I mumbled under my breath, now even more flustered. Quickly turning off the TV, I changed the subject and offered to take Sky out for ice cream. She squealed with joy and forgot all about the elf video.
Call it pride or stubbornness, but I’m determined to come up with my own ideas regarding Marshmallow’s late-night activities. I’m sure there are more elaborate elf shenanigans that could be staged, but taking credit for someone else’s idea wouldn’t fill me with Christmas cheer.
So, I have to think outside the box each night in December before I go to sleep. My fear has always been forgetting to move the elf, lest Sky be disappointed come morning that Marshmallow’s magic wore off. Or worse, having Sky think she’s been placed on the naughty list.
I needed to give myself a visual reminder to move the elf before bed. But it couldn’t be anything that would make Sky suspicious. So, I took an old Barbie doll from the toy chest and placed it on my master bathroom vanity. That way, when brushing my teeth before bed, I’d think to myself, “Why is there a Barbie on my sink?” And then I’d be like, “Oh yeah… I need to move the elf.”
I’ve spoken with many parents who can relate to the inconvenience of owning an elf. Each one of them looks disheveled and sleep-deprived – filled with buyer’s remorse that can’t be measured.
A friend of mine said he forgot to move the family elf one night. As he made coffee the next morning, he realized his folly just as the kids came downstairs. He quickly grabbed the elf and threw it like a grenade. Its lifeless corpse landed on a pile of dirty shoes near the front door.
When the children finally spotted the elf, he tried to gauge their reactions. The six-year-old giggled, “Oh my gosh, the elf was smelling my stinky shoe. Isn’t that funny, Dad?”
“Ohhhh. Yes,” he said. “That must be what the funny elf was doing.”
The ten-year-old, however, raised a suspicious eyebrow, wondering if the elf was starting to get lazy… or if Dad was the lazy one.
Having an elf is all-consuming. It’s not a responsibility for the faint of heart. And parents aren’t the only ones who make sacrifices regarding a live-in elf. Sky recently told me that her school friend Ella returned home from school one afternoon and found her elf resting in the middle of her bed.
“But elves only move at night while children are nestled all snug in their beds,” I claimed.
“Well,” said Sky, “Ella’s elf must be a little different from ours.”
At that moment, I immediately resented Ella’s parents for being smarter than I am. Move the elf during school hours? Why didn’t I think of that? All along, I’d been making the process more difficult for myself than needed. And now, it was too late in the game for Marshmallow to change her ways.
Sky said, “Ella couldn’t sleep in her own bed last night, so she had to sleep on the floor.”
“Why couldn’t she sleep in bed?” I asked.
“Duh! Because everyone knows if you touch an elf with your bare hands, it loses its magic.”
She was right. How had I forgotten? Rule number one about owning an Elf on the Shelf. Never touch it with your bare hands! There were times when Marshmallow was found in a high-traffic area – such as the kitchen table, on Sky’s favorite part of the couch, or sitting on Sky’s booster seat inside the car. This made for a great inconvenience due to the risk of accidentally touching her with our bare hands.
Drastic measures were taken. I’d get a pair of kitchen tongs from the drawer and carefully lift Marshmallow into a more convenient location. Apparently, Ella’s parents hadn’t caught wind of this loophole in the system.
I couldn’t help but feel bad for poor little Ella. I imagined her shivering throughout the night on a hard, wooden floor – a single pillow and thin blanket as her only comfort. I bet she didn’t sleep a wink that night. I bet she failed her math test the next morning due to sleep deprivation. This put a blemish on her otherwise perfect report card… all because an entitled elf hogged her bed, and her parents didn’t know about the tongs trick.
When she’s older, I hope this incident doesn’t give Ella a complex. I mean, she was made to sleep on the floor like a dog while her siblings basked in the comfort of pillowtop mattresses. Will she resent her parents for this as she grows older? Only time will tell.
It would be a shame if she grew to dislike stuffed animals or dolls as a whole. I mean, it wasn’t the elf’s fault that he was granted comfort on a twin-sized bed. It should be chalked up to her parent’s negligence. Still, in time, she might develop a hatred of dolls.
I can envision her as an adult, sneaking into a porcelain doll exhibit in the middle of the night while holding an aluminum baseball bat. She’d disable the security cameras and then just go to town – taking her frustrations out on creepy little ceramic babies. Then again, I doubt anyone would consider it a tragedy. After all, they’re the epitome of terror.
My friend Eddie is terrified of them. Once, while passing through his aunt’s hometown, Eddie needed a place to crash. His aunt gladly offered him the spare bedroom. He immediately regretted staying there when he realized the entire room was filled with porcelain dolls. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling, they lined the shelves… hundreds of them.
Compared to that nightmare, I suppose it’s not so bad being the keeper of an Elf on the Shelf. Yes, they’re a pain in the ass. But perhaps it’s worth the hassle to see the smile on my daughter’s face when she discovers the playful things her elf has done throughout the night.
Have I thought about assisting Marshmallow in meeting her demise? Sure I have. It’s crossed my mind a time or two. For example, I could place cotton fluff around the sink area and sprinkle in some red food coloring. When questioned, I’d explain she must have crawled down the garbage disposal looking for cookie crumbs… and then, the inevitable happened.
I’ve also thought about having Marshmallow leave a goodbye note. No muss. No fuss. Just a little message. It would be specific enough to eliminate confusion but vague enough to fend off questions. “I guess it was just her time to leave,” I’d explain.
In the end, I just can’t bring myself to do it. If I’m being honest, I think I need Marshmallow as much as Sky does. It’s a visual reminder that magic is real. But real magic doesn’t come from magicians or Disney movies. It comes from the little moments we create for ourselves inside our hearts and homes.
Can elves really zipline down tinsel or make snow angels on sugar piles? Of course not. But life without whimsy isn’t a life worth living.
With time, the world does its best to jade us. If we give in, our soul’s cup is filled with stress and anxiety rather than the curious spark we were born with. That being the case, I plan on injecting so much magic into Sky’s life that even if she loses a few sparkles along the way, she’ll have more than enough in her heart to illuminate the world.
Thanks for reading,
Andy