to think that elves on the shelves are stupid?

[silvercup]

I belong to another parenting forum and there are lots of people on there excitedly talking about their elves on the shelves. And I don't really get the appeal.

Surely the magic of Father Christmas is that he's real? You won't see him leave the presents, but he's a living, breathing man. Whereas this elf is quite clearly to any child's eye just a TOY. Does not that dilute the magic of Father Christmas? Make it more likely that children will realise he's not real?

I also think that I must be a really lazy mother, but I really would not relish having to come up with ideas for that elf for the whole of December or whatever. I have enough to do and once DD is in bed all I want to do is watch Eastenders thanks. There seems to be an almost competitive edge to these women, & most irritatingly of all, this is American crap people.

AIBU?

Yanbu.

Similarly people who have Xmas eve hampers, Christmas book per day in December etc. It's an excuse to spend more money ...why?

I can't even stand the term 'PJs' as a cheesy American import - where do I stand on the scale of Christmas Curmudgeonliness?

I have the smoke detector Santa Cam all year round to report back good & bad behaviour to the North Pole.

Thank fuck I have no use for an EOTS. I'll be putting my energies into more appealing 'traditions' (No I don't like them personally & they sound exhausting).

YANBU. Creepy looking little feckers. Also sounds completely and utterly exhausting lazy arse having to come up with a different idea every single day for it to 'do' something.
If I want to bake Christmas cookies, or make snowflakes, we'll just do it thanks.
We don't need some scary assed elf thing to tell us we're going to do Christmas things that day, and grass us up to Santa for not being festive and cheery enough if we decide to do feck all instead.

Silly thread.

I like the elves, they are cute.

Families are free to believe as they wish.

They are very popular in the states , nobody mocks.

I actually quite like the idea, I know I'd have loved it as a kid. Wouldn't buy the usual elf though, it's ugly. Probably make one from scratch instead. Shame DS is too little for it.

They are very popular in the states , nobody mocks.
Yes, another bigger and better 'tradition' that's wormed it's way over here. Cheers. America.

No one in the States have ever mocked an EOTS! Really Feminine??? You know that probably isn't true!

I had never heard of EOTS until about 10 days when I saw them mentioned on here. So someone actually sells them? With a book? Bet they have done very well out of inventing this new tradition!

Americans mocking Elfs on Shelves here for a start

Feminist breeder..

SCROOGE!!!

wtf is a christmas eve hamper?

Hip. well I've found Americans to be a lot more tolerant than us.

For any traditions, they show more respect as a rule

I lived there 7 yrs, and have masses of American family to base my opinion on.

at elf bashing!

wtf is a christmas eve hamper?

where you buy your children new pyjamas a dvd and something nice in the long wait till christmas day comes I think the elf sits on top to make extra sure the children are behaving while wearing new pyjamas

well the point is both those USA Mum/commentators were discussing how divided opinion is (in USA) re EOTS. It is NOT simply a matter of Brits being Ba Humbug :)

I am loving that they now have there own abbreviation

Yes, that is true hip

'they cost SOOOO much'

yes you have to take good care of them.'elf and safety!

My sister has purchases elves for our two. Cool!

"it's not really a "tradition" though, is it? It's something brand new which has just started to catch on over the past couple of years or so." So, something new which catches on and continues for years, tradition, no?

"forgive me for being cynical but that's not a tradition, that's just somebody making money." Yeah, how awful when people start making money out of Christmas?! Bastards!

But I still don't get the "someone's making a lot of money out of this" argument. Who?!
Only one person on this thread has bought the official book.

Isn't this like the eleventh thread about those bizarre elves now?

Still think they're creepy.

The only thing that annoys me about it is the daily competitive facebook updates, complete with photos, from otherwise sane normal women.

"ooh look our elf crashed the kids train set!" "ooh well our elf had a tea party with Woody and Buzz Lightyear", "well ours went bunjee jumping" "well ours went skydiving and look at this 10-page letter he wrote to the children..." Get a grip, it's not real!!!

neither's santa, but we don't all get outraged when people choose to believe in him :)