It's the run up to Christmas, and lucky us, the shops have been playing Christmas songs since the moment the clock struck 12 on Halloween. Not a problem for some folks, but for parents, a fucking Nightmare. Not only do we have to put up with the "How many sleeps?" question every single solitary day, but we also have to sit back and watch as our children's attitude becomes more and more shitty with each passing minute.
As I walked down the street on a frosty day at the back end of November, with my 5 year old wearing a Santa hat and snapping my head off at every opportunity, I decided something had to be done.
I'd heard rumours of a magical Elf who visited children in the run up to Christmas and reported their behaviour to Santa every evening. I decided I needed to get me one of those Elves! I was going to get that little arsehole in check if it killed me.
And I believe kill me it will.
For it appears this Elf is not really magic at all. Well, it is, but it's me that has to do the magic. Every night. For a month. Merry Christmas.
Still! It will be worth it to see the look on my son's face, and will save me a fortune in the Prosecco that I'm forced to drink daily due to his crappy behaviour.
After purchasing an Elf, a magic door, and composing a letter from Santa to my son telling him how god damn awful he was I decided I needed some ideas of what my Elf could get up to and decided to enlist the help of a friend (she knows who she is but let's called her Dee).
Dee is the Mother of my son's best friend and Elf on the Shelf extraordinaire. She added me to a secret group on Facebook for Mums whose children were lucky enough to have an Elf visit them at Christmas.
And it soon became pretty apparent that most Mums were in fact doing this for fun, not in an attempt to blackmail their arsehole kid.
The more I delved in to the group and was notified of members' comments the more I started to become a little 'elf conscious (see what I did there?).
These Mums didn't just have an Elf door that they'd grabbed from Card Factory for £1.99. They had Elf 'areas.' Yes, that's right! AREAS!! Debbi (oh, I mean Dee) herself had set up a 'construction site' in preparation for her Elf's arrival and was planning to put up a miniature fibre optic Christmas tree for him as well as a flashing wreath on his door.
(It actually looks amazing and I'm totally fucking jealous. But let's not tell her I said that.)
Some mums had designed an entire garden outside their Elf door, with a snowy post box and everything!
There were pictures of Elves floating around in hot air balloons in the living room, discussions of 'North Pole breakfasts,' and fizzy pop labels to make 'Elf Punch' and 'Reindeer something or other.'
There were links to shops on Etsy who sell Elf props and Elf clothes.
And I am totally not cut out for this shit!!
I wanted my son to behave! I didn't think I'd have to put this much effort in.
Sigh.
The Elf will arrive on Wednesday 7th December (because I'm a sucky Mum whose Elf is arriving a week late because she's still waiting for it to be delivered from eBay! Ahem! I mean Santa is still awaiting a signal from me that we're ready to welcome our Elf).
It looks terrifying on the picture, so I'm now holding out hope that instead of my son behaving because the Elf is magical and does super cool things, he will behave because the Elf looks demonic and he doesn't want it coming in to his bedroom at night. Staging the Elf in that scenario would probably be a lot more fun!
No?