Cookie...The Elf

The Elf on the Shelf Fad...Ugh! I am so against this thing. I just think it's kind of stupid to use it as a "trick" to get your child to behave themselves for a whole month. On top of that, you have to remember to move the elf every night and be creative with it. With everything else going on in the month of December it's really hard to remember to move the elf. With that said, we caved. We have an Elf on the Shelf. Not because we really want one and really want to participate, but because we felt that we didn't have a choice. We have a friend who was against the Elf and wasn't going to do it until her daughter was in Pre-K and came home asking why they don't have an elf. Apparently all the kids at school talk about their elf. I don't have a good reason to explain to Max next year why he doesn't have an elf visit him during the month, so I ran out to Target the day after Thanksgiving and bought the elf in a box.

Unfortunately the elf didn't go over very well with Max. I read him the book and explained the elf's magic powers once he's named, but he just wasn't buying it. Here are examples of what we heard from Max about his elf:

• "The elf is a toy and toys don't move."

• "Toys don't walk." 

• "How is the toy going to go to the North Pole to see Santa? There's no train that he can get on to take him there. Where are the train tracks? I don't see train tracks, so how would he even get there?"

• "Who moved the elf? Was it daddy? The elf can't move himself because he's a toy. I bet it was daddy."

After my little anti-elf child stopped rambling about the elf not being real I talked with Andy about giving up on the elf, or if we should keep it going. We decided to keep it going and force the elf on him since we don't want to be the parents of a four year old in Pre-K next year telling all the other kids their elf isn't real and it's just a toy.

After three days of making a big deal about the elf, my child finally was sucked in and believed. Max named the elf Cookie and between Andy and I we make sure the elf gets moved every night. Here are a couple of the ways Max woke in the morning to find Cookie.

By the way, Max was not a fan of Cookie spraying his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with silly string. Cookie made a big mess in the living room and daddy had to get out a vacuum cleaner to clean it up. Max did not like that one bit. He told cookie not to make another mess in the house.