Nope on a Shelf

In which I declare war on a figurine

H8 you. / via Shutterstock

This is a bah humbug rant of a post. I’m saltier than a German pretzel. Grinchiness consumes me. 

I am hereby declaring war on Elf on a Shelf. I don’t trust him. I don’t want him near my house. I am tired of every social media platform forcing me to learn about him. I unsubscribe from the idea that I am under any obligation whatsoever to do another work-intensive holiday magic activity. Nice list is full.

Here is what I’ve learned about Elf on a Shelf, against my will: parents who decide to do this to themselves purchase a little elf figurine who can be bent and posed. Every night between Thanksgiving and Christmas, they pose the elf in creative positions connoting mischief (ie: elf squatting above a mug of hot chocolate, implying that the mini marshmallows floating in the hot chocolate are his poop). In the morning when the children wake up, they witness the new scene of mischief and become even more intoxicated by the spirit of the holidays. The parents then lie to their kids about how the elf is moving on his own and somehow spying on them at all times. 

I reject the legitimacy of Elf on a Shelf as a tradition. It is an invention that is trying to become a tradition. Elf on a Shelf attempts to legitimize itself by making itself out to be older and therefore more established than it actually is, like diamond engagement rings or Scientology. Elf on a Shelf looks as though it was deliberately designed to appear to be a midcentury antique, in the tradition of a beat-up ornament from a grandparent’s Christmas Tree. Bamboozlement! Fakery! Elf on a Shelf did not become a widespread practice until after the publication of the 2005 picture book The Elf on a Shelf, sold with a little red elf figurine accompanying it, natch. The book has since sold more than 11 million copies and served as a cash cow for its quite litigious parent company.

However, nothing about the design of the Elf figurine betrays the fact that it was designed and first mass marketed during the second term of the George W Bush administration. If it were a person, it would not be old enough to purchase alcohol or run for congress.

“Adopt a new family tradition this holiday season!” was festooned across the bottom of the 2005 Elf book’s cover. (Love, Actually is older than Elf on a Shelf.) The very phrase “new family tradition” gives me a headache; traditions cannot be declared at their beginning; they can only be observed in retrospect. Know where “traditions” are declared at onset? Authoritarian regimes.

A few years back, there was a smattering of columns arguing that Elf on a Shelf was “a surveillance state apparatus, in much the same half-kidding-or-am-I? way that some have argued that Paw Patrol teaches kids that agents of an authoritarian state are heroes. But I don’t think it’s totally off base. When I was a kid, my parents really leaned into the whole “he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake” thing with Santa, and I feared him more than I feared God. At least God forgave people. Santa kept a list. 

Elf on a Shelf was not a thing when my siblings and I were kids. That’s fine; I don’t believe that the specific details of my childhood Christmas traditions should be held up as the platonic ideal of all holiday celebrations forever. (For example, I’d say that our traditions of going to Catholic mass and having my half-intoxicated grandpa playing the role of a kind of bitchy Santa Claus are things that I’ll probably let fall by the wayside.) However, embracing all new things simply because they are new is equally as stupid as rejecting every new thing because you think that the old things are better on account of the fact that they’re old. I don’t reject all new things, just Christmas traditions that are under 20 years old, don’t make any sense, and create a shitload more work for a demographic of people who frankly do not need anything more on their to do list. 

I don’t believe that many parents actually enjoy the tradition of Elf on a Shelf. If they actually enjoyed it, they wouldn’t need the dopamine hit that comes with broadcasting it on Instagram Reels to justify the work it takes– they’d just do Elf on a Shelf and keep it as a fun little thing that brought their family happiness without needing to involve strangers on the internet. Truly fun things do not need to be broadcast in order to be fun! 

But my main problem with Elf on a Shelf is that it’s another way that Gen X and millennial parents are pressured to believe that the best way to show that you love your kids is by doing everything the hard way. Maybe it’s an overcorrection from the stereotypical bad Boomer parent who didn’t really want to be a parent in the first place– the parents of feral latchkey children, microwave-yourself-some-hot-pockets-for-dinner parents who dumped their kids in front of the TV or early game console or off at their grandparents’ houses at every opportunity, people who were the reason for those Ad Council spots in the 1980’s that reminded self-involved parents to check on their kids at 10 pm.

We know that disengaged parenting is bad parenting because of how many people between the ages of 30-50 have anxiety or attachment disorders. I can’t blame anybody for concluding that the opposite tactic would produce opposite results— super-engaged, high-effort parenting would produce a generation of totally mentally healthy and functional adults. (A feat we have yet to achieve in this country, but hey.)

And that’s why social pressure, now, seems to be toward good parenting meaning parenting the most difficult way possible. This regardless of evidence that suggests whether or not all of the excess work demanded by a practice yields commensurate dividends. 

Here’s a taste of some of what we’re fed as millennial parents: Birth isn’t “natural” if you take something for the pain. If you really cared about your baby’s health, you’d breastfeed no matter the physical, mental, and time cost to you, and you’d do it for at least a year. We aren’t telling our children “no” anymore, we’re “gentle parenting,” which means getting down on the child’s level and calmly trying to understand the emotional journey that brought them to the point of throwing sand in another child’s face for no discernible reason. (Trying to decipher the reasons behind a toddler’s emotional state in the midst of a tantrum is like trying to drink from a firehose.) 

We aren’t feeding our kids purees anymore, we’re doing “baby led weaning,” which is sort of like feeding a baby a puree from a jar except it involves 700% more mess and at least 400% more gagging and choking– which is good! It’s good for them to choke! They have to learn how to cough food up! And even if you are feeding your baby purees, you’re making them yourself, right? Organic? Okay good. We aren’t using walkers or jumpers or containers of any kind, because those things are bad for the baby’s skeletal development. What are you supposed to do when you’re watching the semi-mobile baby alone without help and you need to take a shit? Idk, put them in the crib, without blankets or toys or anything that could possibly amuse them at all and let them yell in boredom until you’re done. When you potty train, do not bribe your child– god help you if you bribe them. Try to do that thing where they run around your house without pants on for three days just peeing everywhere. 

No amount of screen time is safe. Figure out a way to do all of the things you need to do around the house while also entertaining your child, or hand them a wooden toy and hope that works to distract them as effectively as Miss Rachel. They should face backwards in their car seat until they’re growing facial hair. Don’t put them in a stroller when they can walk, even if they walk at approximately two miles per hour in a zig zaggy pattern and you’re trying to get from one location to another sometime before next Tuesday. Congratulations, your baby is turning one year old– have you sent out save the dates? Are you hiring a party planner? Getting the event catered? Do you even love your kid? 

Taken individually, none of these pressures are all that bad. But as part of a whole and in the context of an America that seems increasingly hostile to parents and children on a structural level, it feels like at every new stage of raising a small child, the way we’re supposed to do it is the way that sucks the most remaining life out of the parent.

There’s evidence to suggest that some time-consuming parenting practices that have come into favor in the last decade are worth the extra effort– like techniques to introduce solid foods that aren’t “put some rice cereal in their boddle,” sharing a room with a baby for the first six months, and not using one of those baby “walkers” with wheels that are so dangerous that they’re illegal in Canada. Safe sleep, which keeps babies from being so comfortable that they sleep too deeply, literally saves lives.

Elf on a Shelf, on the other hand, provides a benefit, despite it requiring significant work. Alloting an extra 20 minutes for a stroller-free walk can give your kid time to practice their gross motor skills. Scientifically speaking, Elf on a Shelf is just an extra fucking thing. You get like, one extra twinkle of holiday magic in the eyes of your children, and in order to earn that, parents basically need to cosplay as amateur Rankin & Bass for 1/12 of the year. 

Parents (let’s be honest, it’s mostly moms) are already responsible for creating holiday magic for their entire families. They’re doing most of the Christmas shopping, wrapping the gifts, getting holiday cards sent out, sending packages, baking the cookies that will eventually be left out for Santa, arranging the gifts under the tree, feeding everybody, cleaning up after it’s all over, and being judged as deficient if any of these things isn’t done to standard. Do they need another thing to do? Does any parent? 

That’s why we are an elf-free house. If my daughter asks, I will tell her that I will personally murder any elves who attempt to enter my home, possibly with one of the many-pointed gold stars that sit on our living room bookshelf during the holiday season. I could not care less about any elves on shelves of any kind and at any latitude peering whimsically into a Ring Camera or being posed like it’s trying to roast one of mom’s tampons over a miniature fire. I’ve got too many real things to do to sign up for another fake tradition.