Imagine chewing on some freshly broken glass, then chasing it with a pint of nail polish remover, while the Chipmunks play at 11 in the background: that’s the psychic equivalent of reading Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition, whose introduction manages to be both ominous and shrill.
“At holiday time, Santa sends me to you.
I watch and report on all that you do.
My job’s an assignment from Santa himself.
I am his helper, a friendly scout elf.”
For the uninitiated, the book—which is a relatively short 28 pages, but feels like 1,245—tells the tale of the scout elves who hide in our households during the daytime and fly to the North Pole with a full report every night. The Elf is a new-ish tradition, created in 2004 by a mother-daughter team who wrote the book over a cup of tea. Since then, Elf on the Shelf has sold over six million copies and become a seasonal guest in as many homes: it now comes with a slew of accessories and DVDs, as well as an app, a birthday version, and surely many more spinoffs to come.
As a toy, the Elf on the Shelf is benign enough. It’s a skinny-ass doll, about a foot long, with a big-eyed pixie face, a plastic head, and a felt body, on sale at your local big box store for $29.95. (The Elf comes in a boy and a girl version, both almost identically androgynous—but you can give it even more of a gender, it seems, by purchasing a $9.95 skirt).
As an idea, however, the Elf on the Shelf is a surveillance state nightmare. Santa’s No. 1 rat fink begins its reign of terror at the end of November or beginning of December each year. It can snitch to Santa if children have taken scissors to the drapes or some other act of childish malfeasance. There are certain rules regarding engagement: You must name the elf (my daughter named it “The Elf.”). You must never touch the elf, but you can talk to the elf. You must realize that every move is being watched, as if your home is a reality show. If you lose the game by touching the elf or behaving badly, your punishment ranges from shitty presents like oranges, to no presents, to burning in the fiery pit of hell.
I hadn’t heard of the Elf until two years ago, when my daughter Grace, now four, was gifted the Elf and the book by her grandparents on her dad’s side. I love them dearly; they are always so generous and thoughtful with their gifts. What they likely didn’t realize, in this instance, was that giving someone the elf is akin to giving someone a puppy. There’s upkeep to consider.
But at first, we thought the elf would be fun. Her dad and I are divorced, so we each instated an elf at our respective homes (mine is the dark-skinned version and his more Nordic, a small difference that we have not had to explain away by any statements about diversity or elf magic). I moved the elf around dutifully, and wrote cute little notes: “Hey Gracie! Remember to do a great job listening to your mom today! See you later! Love, Elf. PS Please leave me some cookies.”
I felt a little bad using the elf for behavior-modification that would ultimately benefit me, but I thought it couldn’t do much harm: after all, how much different was it than propaganda for Santa, who can see you when you’re sleeping and awake and all that? Then, after a while, the elf would “forget” to write and “forget” to move about the room to innovative new stalking sites. I started to resent it, the upkeep, and also the implication for an already materially burdensome holiday—that if my daughter was good, she’d get proportionately more presents.
But anyway, the first year, Grace didn’t quite catch on to the concept of in-home CCTV, and probably just thought, “Oh, look, that elf was hanging on the curtain rod yesterday, and now it’s on the TV. Pass me some string cheese.” With low stakes, it was easy enough to at least try and play along. I knew her dad was into it, and I thought that Grace was having fun: she seemed, whenever she talked about the elf, to believe that it was truly otherworldly.
Then, something started to change. Grace is normally a brave, confident kid. She’ll zip down the sidewalk at full speed on her scooter, trying all kinds of complicated poses with her free leg. She’ll go up and talk to anyone (recent openers to complete strangers include: “Don’t forget, my birthday is June 7!” “My mom and dad don’t live together!” and my favorite, at a road trip rest stop, “My mom is gassy today!”) Last year, I noticed that she had gotten a little nervous about the elf, and always wanted me to go into the living room first in the morning to see where it had moved overnight. Not only did she know she couldn’t touch it, but she gave it a wide berth. She was relieved that it left on Christmas night.