It’s that time of year.
It’s getting colder, the sales have started and there’s a sea of red and green in store windows, cloying at passersby to purchase the latest fashion trend or electronic.
With the arrival of the Christmas season comes the arrival of a new-age tradition in millennial households — the elf on the shelf.
For those who have not heard of the holiday hit, the elf uses its Christmas and Santa magic to go back and forth from the house to the North Pole every night, reporting to Santa when the children in the home have been naughty or nice.
Every day, the elf returns in a different location, but always watching for good and bad behavior. No one may touch the elf, as human touch can ruin its magic.
Our elf, which our daughter named Cookie Cream in 2019, always makes a spectacle of arriving. He generally comes with presents and a note. This year, he arrived right on time Thursday.
Coming in through the kitchen window, he left a trail of “snow” (if you gather enough of it you can make bread) across the dishes and to the kitchen island, where he planted himself on a toy train our daughter got the other day.
Along with his presence, Cookie Cream also gifted an advent-style chocolate calendar and a bag of dehydrated, authentic North Pole snow.
As the month goes on, there’s no telling the kinds of shenanigans Cookie Cream will get into.
Sometimes he falls asleep on top of the TV, and other times he hides inside the tree. He has an affinity for hanging toilet paper from the fan when he gets mischievous, and at one point last year, he made “snow angels” all over the kitchen table.
Last year, Santa allowed the elf a new trick. Cookie Cream sealed himself inside a glass jar with a note saying he could be carried throughout the day.
He had himself a great couple days, taking in a Christmas parade and visiting the Festival of Lights.
All was perfect until he was mishandled for a moment and the jar broke. We had to rescue the poor fella with tongs, and our daughter was borderline hysterical at the thought she had hurt him.
Luckily, he wrote one of his special notes the next day to assure her he was in no way harmed and knew it was just an accident.
We’ll see this year if he is brave enough to put himself in a jar again.
As a kid growing up in the 1990s, we did not have an elf on the shelf in our house. We got the classic, “Santa is always watching.” I always pictured him and Jesus having a pow-wow in the corner of the room.
Usually only once a year, we’d head to the mall in Little Rock and visit Mr. Kringle. Those moments were always magical, but fleeting in a way.
It’s a lot of work to chase after Cookie Cream every day, cleaning up the messes he leaves knowing there will be a new — possibly bigger — mess the next day.
However, I can’t imagine having Christmas at our house now without him. And, while this is not our youngest’s first Christmas, it is the first one she will start to see and feel some of that seasonal magic that comes in December. Cookie Cream even wrote her a separate note this year, her first.
We always have this idea that as generations grow and change, they take the good from their past and add to it.
Adding the elf on a shelf tradition is just that, adding a consistent not-so-fleeting Christmas feeling that magically keeps spirits high all through the month.
I do hope this year he takes it easier on the “snow,” though.
Kyle Troutman has served as the editor of the Cassville Democrat since 2014. In 2017, he was named William E. James/Missouri Outstanding Young Journalist for daily newspapers, and in 2022, he won a Golden Dozen Award from ISWINE. He may be reached at 417-847-2610 or ktroutman@cherryroad.com.
