Counting down the days until I won’t have to remember Elf on the Shelf | Kelly Brown

Tis the season to be jolly - as well as wake up in the middle of the night and have a panic about ‘the elf’.
Elf on the ShelfElf on the Shelf
Elf on the Shelf

It is December and, while our small people get excited, for many of us grown-ups it is the time of year when we do our best to be witty and entertaining. Or, in the very least, not forgetful as we play our part in the new ‘tradition’ of Elf on the Shelf.

For anyone lucky enough to have no idea what I am talking about (I envy you!) then let me educate you. Elf on the Shelf migrated to the UK from America in recent years and starts with an elf arriving in your house on December 1 to keep an eye on your children and report back to the man in red.

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Then every day in December before Christmas, once the kids are in bed, parents place the elf in different locations in the house so he pops up somewhere new when they wake up in the morning.

But, of course, the pressure is on when you hear that other people’s elves have been up to all sorts through the night. From messy baking to playing with toys and throwing toilet roll all over the house (possibly very appropriate for 2020 - the year of the toilet roll - but I digress).

Not only have you got the added pressure of actually remembering to do the elves before you go to bed, and not waking up in the night in a cold sweat because you have forgotten, you have to think of things they can be doing that will just amaze your children ...- the naughtier the better!

Now, I avoided Elf on the Shelf until last year when my own mother felt my children were missing out, so decided to ‘invite’ two elves to my house. (Thanks, mum!)

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So far the naughty elves raided my son’s sock drawer, made ‘snow angels’ in the kitchen with flour and ate some of the chocolates off the Christmas tree. I really have little energy to be any more creative than that!

I wish I had gone down the route of some of my friends and put their elves in a quarantine jar for 14 days. But I was not that organised.

Instead, while the children are counting the days until Christmas Day, so will I be, but probably for very different reasons!