Do You Elf?

How many of you out there know about Elf on the Shelf?

image: via

I heard about it about 2 years ago for the first time from a family I nannied for and loved the idea of moving this creepy, slightly pervy little elf around my house in order to elicit good behavior from a child.  When we moved to Illinois, the family here that I worked for had it too and then gave me my own for Christmas last year.

Our elf, unnamed at this point, is currently sitting atop our stereo watching me type this post.  It's kind of eerie, really. He's got that shiny little face and that oh-so-innocent thing going on, kind of like you might wake up in the night and find he's managed to wrap his hand stumps around a knife handle or an old, rusty pair of scissors  I hope he didn't see me not share a chocolate bar with Brendan or that time yesterday when I rolled my eyes at him.  Santa wouldn't approve.

I'm looking forward to all the future Christmases when I can point to our elf and remind Brixton that Santa's watching (kind of like a child's introduction to Brave New World with the elf acting like some go-between).

Last night while I was killing time on Pinterest, I found this blog with an awesome list of things to do with your elf.  And here I thought putting him on a shelf or hidden in the tree was the height of what he could do! 

Since I can't really interact with Brixton with the elf, I'm going to torture Brendan with it.  I think when Brendan pulls the sheets back tonight, he'll find elf laying there, looking up at him.  Game on.