To not do 'Elf on the shelf'

[Alottodoaboutssomething]

I understand it as a magical annoying elf turning up 1st December, to watch your children, and report their behaviour back to the North Pole. However, it back fires when it is the "naughty" elf who infact is the one who needs watching. This is demonstrated by his antics each night (set up by the lucky parent who has to think of various mischievous predicaments for 24 days)! Please correct me if I am wrong on this.

I promise I am not a grinch! We do crafts, baking, advent calendars, small Christmas box with night before Christmas book, Santa key, leaving mince pie, carrot on Christmas eve etc in the lead up. I just find the elf idea creepy, especially the whole watching/monitoring idea. Surely it could lead to a "mummy is this you doing this?" and create further risk of them questioning Santa as well. I don't know if this has happened to anybody!

Dc1 has asked about his elf, and I don't want to do it, and feel mean, because the other kids get it visiting them. I don't want a festive squatter in my home!

We do a lite version, we have a small key ring size elf one of my DC picked out at garden centre. He usually turns up a few days into December and either sits somewhere funny round the house or gets into mild mischief (when either DH or I remember/can be bothered). He’s a bit of Christmas fun, there’s no suggestion he actually reports back to Santa and none of my DC have believed it’s anything other than a bit of fun that mum/dad do for kids.

I hate the elf. Spying on kids while causing havoc is a v confusing idea to sell to children!

my 12 yo ds mentioned the elf once when he was about 7 and about half his class had an elf. I said we didn’t need one as Santa was more than happy with his behaviour and he didn’t need monitoring. He was happy with that. Dd is only 3 years younger and I would say is one of only a small handful of kids in the class without an elf. This has caused much upset because she wants to join in the chats with what the elves had done. So to achieve a compromise, she has a cuddly elf which about 3 times in December gets moved. I’ll put it on the tree or on the wardrobe or something. It doesn’t report back to Santa or do anything naughty. But at least she has something to say in school. I hate that it’s become so popular that everyone expects excerpted else to have one. I also hate that everyone is expected to have the same Xmas traditions these days

If you don't want to do it then don't, it's not mandatory. We have the elf, but it was bought in a shop and doesn't report back to santa. I have always told them that there is no such thing as a bad child and parents only say that to get their kids to behave anyway.

For us it is a bit of fun and the elf never does anything mean. Some of the things I have seen, particularly from America, seem disgusting or traumatising.

I've done it for about 11 years now, ours doesn't do anything naughty though, he just moves to a different place every night. If you don't want to do it then don't, but it's only as difficult as you want to make it

I did it when mine were younger but he just hid round the house and they had to find him every morning. It was a bit of a chore but they absolutely loved it and still talk about elf now they're teenagers. I don't think I would have bothered with all the "inventive scenarios" though.

I won't be doing it. I don't really like the naughty/nice concept or the creepy watching over thing anyway but I also don't want to start a tradition that's so laborious at a busy time of year anyway.
I don't really care if other people are doing it. It will just be another thing to add to the list that I won't be doing for my children that others do for theirs, they'll get used to the fact that different families do different things.

Despite having an elf, this is my favourite answer!

We've never done the creepy elf on a shelf thing. We were given one once and it went straight to the charity shop. I can't bear the idea of watching and reporting on children to Santa, nevermind the hideous Santa-Cam that I've seen in the shops!

Of course you don't need to do it, it's a silly very recent moneymaking venture not a cherished old tradition.

Didn't even exist when my dd was a kid!

We are Christian and the commercialised build up completely takes away from the real meaning of Christmas. It's sad.

That's one thing I'm not going to start.

It was around when DS was small but we never bothered with it. It should be something you do if you want to, not because others do it or not. 😁

We did elf on the shelf for one Xmas and then lost interest because my kid was a touch too old. The elf just ended up with her other toys. Then a friend of hers came over and was a bit surprised and upset to see the elf just lying on the floor with lol dolls and plushies. So be warned, elf on the shelf is a responsibility 😬

I agree with this.
I'd never even heard about it until I joined MN last year.
It's so sad that Christmas, along with Easter, Halloween, Valentines day etc have just been turned into retail- fests.
So much pressure on families just to spend money to prop up the retail industry.
So much pressure to just to do things because the perception created is everyone else is doing it and it's the norm.

If you're not American why would you even think of it anyway?

Magical my arse. It's just clever marketing.

Nope, always made it clear to the dc that this was yet another thing that mum's were expected to keep on top of and I did enough already. I had no idea that there are mum's who pretend this is a real thing. Bah humbug.
I do do advent calendars and stockings, Easter egg hunt, costumes for Halloween and by some trickery of my dc, we seem to have made boo boxes which I never knew were a thing untill about a week ago.

Thank god this American piece of imported trash wasn't a thing when my son was young. It's just more commercialised pressure on parents, fuelled by social media. It sucks. However, if your child is going to be made to look silly or perceived as not part of the "pack", then I understand parents' concerns.

Never done it. School have. Friends have.

I said bluntly that elves are banned from my house because they cause too much chaos and I wasn't willing to host them. And that Santa was fine with this because he knows how much trouble they are.

We still do plenty enough during the whole of December without needing a sodding elf.

Elf on the Shelf was just starting to be a thing when my children were around 7-10, so we never did it thank god. These sorts of thing are just about bearable when they are an expression of each family's individual discovery of quirky ways to add fun to Christmas. But as soon as they become a copied phenomenon they just add more pressure on mothers to be semi-professional event organisers so their children don't feel left out of other kids' Christmas conversations at school.

It is almost comparable to drug addiction -- you start off doing it for some sort of additional pleasure and quickly end up committed to it just in order to stay at baseline happiness.

I have only ever heard about EOTS via Mumsnet and it always sounded disgustingly twee to me.

YANBU. I think the 'elf on the shelf' trend of recent years won't last the test of time. Although some parents love it, for many it is a chore and they do it because they worry about their children missing out.

Most of our genuine Christmas traditions in this country have their roots in folklore or religion. 'Elf on the shelf' does not have that cultural grounding behind it. It was only "invented" in 2004 and has been successful because of marketing and social media.

I could be wrong, but I don't think it will be with us in a hundred years time.

You can just say Elf on the Shelf is a toy that some people have and like to play a game with where they pretend he reports to Father Christmas, but we don't do that. End of story.

When you get down to it, some people aren't going to do Father Christmas full stop, some he brings stocking presents, some he brings everything, some families will still do the threat of "a lump of coal and an onion if you're naughty" - part of kids going out into the world is encountering people with different beliefs and traditions and thoughts on the world to them. They have to learn to navigate that.

I'd suggest some sort of alternative like Cat Who Doesn't Give a Fuck -- where the family pet observes the child's behaviour but doesn't bother to report it to Father Christmas because he doesn't give a fuck.

You definitely don't have to do it. It's a craze which wasn't around even a decade ago. My early 20s dc never did it-nobody did. Fads come and go.

I’m not doing it either. I go over the top at Christmas admittedly because I love it but im drawing the line at the elf mainly because I cba 🤣