It's Not That Hard: Just Put the Dang Elf on a Dang Shelf, People
In The Parent Crap, Alice Laussade chronicles life as a mom in Dallas. Worried you're screwing up your kid? Tweet questions to @thecheapbastard and she'll confirm that, yes, you're screwing up your kid.
Should be easy and fun. But, now, parents are making it into work. Dammit, parents.
It's Christmastime again, and if you have a toddler at home, that means it's also probably Elf On The Shelf time. If you've never heard of Elf On The Shelf, let me explain: It's a dumb thing parents do that can only end in self hate and tears.
Oh sure, Elf On The Shelf seemed like a cute idea when you bought one for your house. "We'll set him out every night, tell the kid he reports back to Santa so they'd better not be assholes, and it'll be like we've got a Christmas watchdog right in our house. Hell yeah."
But apparently, these days, simply putting the elf out on the shelf is not enough.
Parents are staging all kinds of ridiculous scenes each night as their kids sleep. The kid wakes up to find the elf in a sunshine-and-rainbows-type scene like this:
Or this:
via asmallsnippet.blogspot.com
The elves are constantly "causing mischief," like making snow angels on your floor or baking cookies in the kitchen and spilling flour everywhere. Why the hell would you screw up your house for this? Would you drop Christmas thunder on your own floor and put the elf by it and pretend he did it? Don't answer that.
beckieandbrad.blogspot.com Elf Snow Angel is so cute, I want to punch him in the tit.
And this is just the tip of the crazy iceberg.
When I first heard about this, I thought I must just be around someone who was singularly obsessed with making this harder than it needs to be. Then I found out that this is a real thing that lots of parents are into. It's a "thing."
The other day I heard a mom say the actual words, "The Elf On The Shelf is stressing me out this year." Stressing you out? You saying that you're stressed out by Elf On The Shelf is as ridiculous as me saying, "We can still be friends after this."
"Pinterest has a ton of creative ideas," SuperMegaMom said, as if this was a completely normal conversation.
"I know! I have a calendar with all of my ideas for the month, so I can keep it all organized," HighAndMightyMom bragged. The fuck? This the fuck:
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