Learner Dad: The Elves on the Shelf have given us an excuse to start Christmas early 

The Elf on the Shelf

I’m starting to fall for the Elf on the Shelf.

I hated her first appearance in our house four years ago. My wife swears she had nothing to do with it and who am I to dispute that.

The grin on her face (the elf now, not my wife), the vaguely judgemental look in her eyes (the elf again, just in case my wife is reading), I resented the way she took over our house in early December. (The elf. Just to be clear.)

I didn’t fancy the early morning giddiness either when the kids burst into the kitchen to find out what the elf had been doing the night before. It’s very dark in early December and I take a while to wake up. I can be a grumpy dad until I get half way down my first cup of coffee.

I spent a lot of Grinch-y moments, wondering if we’d be better off without the elf, or at least got an elf that doesn't move around, like my the one friend was lucky enough to have in his house.  I ran this by my wife, but she said no, we have to live with the full-on, all-action elf that Santa sent to us. My wife loves the elf.

And now I’m starting to come around as well. It’s a pandemic thing. In a normal year, I like the way Christmas creeps up on us in early December. It starts with a little flutter, and by the time December 20 comes around, we’re eating a box of Celebrations for lunch. Fantastic.

This year is different. If you read this column last week, you’ll know that I was dragging myself through late November. I’m not the only one – a colleague said exactly the same thing the other day, that he’s going through the motions, running on empty with very little hope to keep him going. Leaked Nphet briefings will do that to a man or woman.

The only solution here is to bring Christmas forward a couple of weeks. Enter the elf. Or elves because we have two this year. It’s like their presence in the house has given us all an excuse to start Christmas early. We had nuggets and pizza and wine for dinner last night, which is very un-Wednesday in our house. (The kids passed on the wine, before you contact child services or accuse us of being French.)

Picture: iStock 

My daughter and son wrote a note to the elves last night and, what do you know, there was a reply waiting for them this morning. I had a flash of Grumpy Dad when they barrelled into the kitchen, high on the excitement of a note from the elves. There were no elves in our day, and it didn’t do us any harm, I didn’t actually say this, because the kids’ energy made it feel a bit like Christmas morning.

Wizard finally got their wish – it’s starting to feel a bit like Christmas every day. Now, Christmas every day would be my idea of hell, in normal times. And come early January, I’ll be glad it’s over and I can start looking forward to longer days with less indigestion.

But this year, I need early cheer. I don’t need a bit of Christmas in early December, I need all of it. So bring on the Advent calendars loaded with chocolate. Who cares that back in our day, Advent calendars contained a little thought for the day, rather than a fun-sized Curly Wurly?

We need less thinking and more treats. Our kids wrapped their jaws around some chocolate before we forced porridge on them this morning, and I’m all in favour of it.

There are two paths we can take from here to the end of the year. We can throw our heads in our hands at the latest drip-feed of bad news from the omicron police. Or we can turn around and say, 'look, the elves have arrived'. Just because the panto might be out of bounds doesn’t mean we shouldn’t open a tin of Pringles at 10am. So, go for it. And happy early Christmas.