The Elf Is Watching

Originally published December 18, 2009

The Elf is Watching

from The Stigma of Juvenilia by cigmata

Everybody enjoys a good holiday tradition, and there is no time more rife with them than right friggin' now. How does a holiday tradition start? I'll break it down for you, real simple like:

1)Somebody does something.
2)Somebody else thinks that the aforementioned something is awesome.
3)Repeat.

The best traditions seem to just begin accidentally and catch on organically. About ten years or so ago my best friend and I stopped at a gas station Thanksgiving morning for cigarettes. The festive and beaming Indian man who sold me my smokes flashed a bright and joyous smile and said, "Happy Chicken, my friend!" My buddy and I held our composure until we left the store and then promptly doubled over and laughed for a good twenty minutes. We then spent the rest of the day wishing everyone a "Happy Chicken." The next year, most of my friends and family wished me a Happy Chicken before I could even get around to it. Now, every Thanksgiving consists of my cellphone blowing up with Happy Chicken texts and my Facebook homepage being half-filled with Happy Chickens. I am fairly certain that there are people who I have never met wishing one another a Happy Chicken, and the mere thought of it fills me with holiday cheer.

Which brings me to the newest holiday tradition sweeping the nation one $29.95 box at a time: The Elf on the Shelf:

 

If you haven't yet heard of it, here's the gist:

This elf doll is actually alive: a magic scout elf who keeps a constant eye on you. Every night while you sleep he flies to the North Pole and fills Santa in on your exploits, be they naughty or nice. He's always back the next morning, only in a different spot than where you last saw him. You can talk to him, tell him what you want for Christmas, and he'll put it in your file and let St. Nick know. Just whatever you do, don't touch him:

There's only one rule that you have to follow
so I will come back and be here tomorrow:
Please do not touch me. My magic might go,
and Santa won't hear all I've seen or I know.
I won't get to tell him that you've said your prayers,
or helped to bake cookies,
or cleaned off the stairs.
How will he know how good you have been?
He might start to think you forgot about him.

Am I the only one who finds this a little bit creepy? Not just the bizarre threat of possibly ruining Christmas if you lay so much as a finger on your elf, but the fact that this yuletide Chucky moves around at night and shows up in a different spot each day?

If I had gone to bed as a child, told that my Optimus Prime was wearing a wire for the Easter Bunny, and then woke up with Prime on a completely different side of the room . . . well, I would've lost my goddamn mind. It was hard enough trying to fall asleep some nights with the various monsters and creeps that lurk in the shadows of a child's bedroom, but with a living doll staring at me? Gaaghckk!!

(shudder)

As much as this "tradition" bothers me, nothing drives me more bonkers than the picture book that explains everything in rhyme. Why does this book rankle me so? Because it's a heaping pile of shit, that's why. The rhymes are middling and mediocre at best and the art is the epitome of amateur hour. It's this sucky faux-retro garbage that's meant to look old and vintage like those dog-eared children's books you find in antique stores next to the out of print Little Black Sambo with the original racist drawings. The Elf on the Goddamn Shelf with old-timey art is like the pre-faded and tattered clothing you buy at Abercrombie and Fitch: fake old.

Traditions aren't supposed to be something new, they're supposed to be old and cherished from some long-forgotten legend. The Elf on the Shelf, once you strip away the old-timey Howdy Doody doll and crappy retro art, is twenty years younger than Secretary's Day. In the 70's a lady by the name of Carol Aebersold was asked by her children how Santa was able to tell if they were being naughty or nice. Rather than using the most popular excuses ("nobody knows," "your father and I talk to him on the phone," "God tells him," "he has mind powers like Professor X") Aebersold whipped out a toy elf and outed it as a spy. A tradition was born!


I can get behind that. I can even get behind packaging a freakish elf with a book and getting stinking rich off of it . . . because isn't that the true meaning of Christmas? I can totally get behind a self-published independent book blowing up. What I cannot get behind is just how toilet the book is.

No matter how many John Muth's there are making gorgeous works of art between the pages of picture books there will always be a Coe Steinwart (the Elf artist) to fuck it up and set the perception and expectations of children's books back twenty years. Steinwart is the Matchbox 20 to Muth's Nirvana, the Limp Bizkit to Kadir Nelson's Rage Against the Machine. You really want to start a tradition? Let's start the tradition of quality books! Not the tradition of--gaaghk!


Oh, that terrifying rascal! Where will he show up next?

The final page of The Elf on the Shelf reads:

This tradition began for the _________________ family
on ____________, 20___.
We welcomed our elf by choosing the name: _________________.

It feels so forced and phoney to me, a book shamelessly begging to be a keepsake. I just don't think you can force a real tradition, even if you throw the word "tradition" on the cover, but if you really must try then don't try with a crappy book and a creepy doll.


Don't forget next November to wish everyone a Happy Chicken!

(That'll be $29.95 please.)