Eff the Elf!

Do you know what I don't like?  I don't like the Elf on the Shelf.  Not one bit.  Don't get me wrong, I am not a Scrooge.  I liked him just fine in the beginning.  Like 3 years ago.  But now, he's just getting on my damn nerves!

What started out as a fun little tradition has turned my December into a month of headache!  Thanks to Pinterest and friends from school with parents who are obviously cooler and more creative than we are, we now have created an Elf-fiasco!

Our Elf, Smiley, used to just move around from counter to counter, room to room and hang out in the most obvious of places.  Not any more.  Now he has to have new Elf clothes each year to keep up with the other Elves that they hear about at school.  He can't just come and chill on the counter anymore, he has to be tied up, held hostage by other toys, making dinner, playing in the ingredients (that's not messy at all!), taking a marshmallow bath in the sink-and I don't keep marshmallows on hand, so that one called for a late-night trip to the store! Zip-lining, pulling underwear out of drawers, running toilet paper all over the damn house, building lego towers, making an Elf-angel in flour on the countertop......For the love people!  I can't keep up!  And my favorite part is that each night, the kids now write Smiley letters to take to Santa.....and they expect a RESPONSE!!  So now I have to learn to write and speak Elf!!  EFF!

And then come the mornings when Smiley wasn't in a new crazy predicament because Mom and Dad were too damn tired and forgot to move him.  We have used the following excuses: "There must have been a horrible storm at the North Pole and Smiley couldn't get home last night to report to Santa, so he just stayed here."  "I guess you guys were too naughty and he didn't want to tell Santa on you!"  "Smiley must have been too sick to fly to the North Pole last night.  Poor guy."  Ya, we are horrible parents.

Can we just go back to the simpler times?  Like, I don't want to rack my brain every night trying to come up with a new Elf-story.  I don't want to do it.  It's not fun anymore.  I miss the days when my Elf just sat on the shelf, with his little Elf smirk and his little Elf hat.  And everything wasn't such a big production.  Let's go back I say!  Either that, or one morning Smiley might not return, and the only thing the kids will find is a little tiny letter from a little tiny Elf, who had to return to the North Pole for good, because Santa needed him to help make more toys!  (Of course, that won't really happen, but what I'm trying to say is Eff this damn Elf business!)

Here is where Smiley is hanging out tonight.  Because we are lazy.  Happy Elf-ing December!