When talking about something techno-related or some latest fad, my Mom will often express her dismay about not being aware of it by noting “I don’t know anything about that. I am not of this time.” I always tease her that whenever she says that she sounds like she is either some space alien or Jesus Christ.
Well, at dinner the other night with my sons, their wives and my grand kids, the subject of Elf on the Shelf came up. As they conversed about it, I recalled Mom’s words and confirmed to all of them just what an-out-of-it old fart I am by saying “I never heard of this. How long has this been a thing?”
Then, only a few days later at lunch with some of my friends who like me have grand kids, they discussed their experiences with frequently moving their Elf on the Shelf around the house for their grand kids to find. They mentioned giving their little tykes a reward or present whenever the kids found the Elf. Again I just shook my head and thought “Am I the only one who hasn’t heard of this?”
So I did some searching and found that the Elf on the Shelf originated back in 2005 as follows:
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elf_on_the_Shelf |
I also learned that the Elf on the Shelf is not without some controversy (click here.) Folks object to it for 2 reasons. One, it is simply another marketing ploy to sell more stuff because rewards are given daily to the kids whenever they find the Elf. (That reason I agree with because the Buzzy in me always defaults to “If it’s gonna cost me money, then it ain’t a good thing.”)
The second argument against the Elf made less sense to me though: the Elf is a creepy monitoring device that shouldn’t be employed to make kids behave. The reasoning is that it is not cool to tell little kids that someone or thing is always watching them to make sure that they are always behaving or if they don’t they won’t get a reward.
This argument didn’t phase me so much because I thought of all those years of Catholic school and the nuns telling us that God was always watching us and that we better be good or we’d up up in hell or purgatory. A more sinister, deep state-is-bad explanation had to do with the Elf on the Shelf is part of a conspiracy plot to condition kids to becoming accustomed to being spied upon. (What? Take Alexa’s job? We can’t have that!)
But bottom line, and just to show that I can learn some new dance steps, I have decided to implement Buzzy’s Elf on the Shelf initiative. Examples follow:
I’ll rotate him around and give a “reward” to the first person who finds him every day.
I thought of this 1984 tune made by Barry Gordy’s son Kennedy Gordy. Young Gordy changed his name to Rockwell because he didn’t want people to think he made it on his father’s name. I think him having Michael Jackson as his back up singer may have had more to do with the song becoming a hit vice him changing his name (click here.)