Soooooo, back in 2016 I had never heard of elf on the shelf. I come over to my sisters house on Christmas Eve. I have a 4 year old niece. Whenever I’d come over, I’d grab the nearest toy and start playing. I think you can see where this is headed.
I hug my niece and right near the door is a little table. On it, I see this little doll. I grab it and say “Oh, hi (her name), you wanna play?”
Usually when I do that in my funny voices, I get smiles, and clapping and giggles. Not this time.
IMMEDIATE banshee screaming, followed by full waterworks. I have no idea what is going on. I know I did something, but I cannot piece it together.
All of this within a few seconds. My family is now screaming NOOOOOOO!!! and my sister WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???
And my niece is now on the floor wailing. Full on crying like I killed a cat or something.
Meanwhile I STILL don’t know what is even happening in this moment. I know I hugged my niece, picked up a doll, and now everyone hates me.
Finally my brother in law sees the scene and saves the day.
“Heeeeeey, it’s ok! Uncle doesn’t live here! It’s powers can only be affected by people who live here?”
And my niece stops crying.
“So Christmas isn’t ruined?”
“No! Christmas is still happening just as normal. Everything is fine.”
My niece gives me a dirty look, and runs off to her room. Then my mom explained what just happened. And now I get it. Would have been helpful to know BEFORE I came over…
And thats the story of how I was the villain who killed a childs Christmas for 45 seconds.
I have hated Elf on a Shelf ever since. Stupid fucking concept. Plus it normalizes mass surveilance. Though, I guess the same is true of Santa Claus. And the Easter Bunny. And God. And The Tooth Fairy.
Though, to be fair, The Tooth Fairy might not actually be engaging in surveilance. Maybe she just has a tooth sensor installed in your pillow. It was never made clear to me the logistics of The Tooth Fairy.
Basically the parents buy this elf doll. They put it somewhere on in their house. Then they tell their kid to be good for all of December, because this little elf is in your house. The elf is watching everything you do, and reporting back to Santa. But you can’t touch the elf, because when humans are around, the elf has to stiffen up, and pretend to be a doll. If you touch the elf, or move him, he doesn’t like it, and will tell Santa to skip your house on Christmas. So it’s a big deal that elf on the shelf never be physically touched or picked up at all.
Then when the kids leave the room, the parent moves the doll while the kid is away. The kid comes back, see’s the doll moved to the other side of the room, and when the kid asks about it, the parent says “Hmmm? No, I didn’t touch him. He must have just moved over there when we left the room. Don’t touch him! He wants to be over there now.”
So the idea is, you now have this magical creature who runs around seemingly with Toy Story rules, except touching him ruins Christmas. Then I come in and IMMEDIATELY grab him, because all I see is a toy. In my mind I was just happy to play with my niece and was instead met with a full on breakdown.
I only know some friends of mine had this elf thing and would move it every morning before the kids wake up and make him do funny things. Like make him read a book or climb something or whatever. Never heard about the “it will ruin Christmas” thing. I think it’s fairly new invention, based on some children books. Most non-parents don’t know it.
Religion makes a lot more sense when you think of it like parents lying to their kids to get them to behave.
Like yeah, don’t kill each other because uh… because someone is watching and will kill you twice as hard forever.
Point is, the elf on the shelf is my lord and savior.
Soooooo, back in 2016 I had never heard of elf on the shelf. I come over to my sisters house on Christmas Eve. I have a 4 year old niece. Whenever I’d come over, I’d grab the nearest toy and start playing. I think you can see where this is headed.
I hug my niece and right near the door is a little table. On it, I see this little doll. I grab it and say “Oh, hi (her name), you wanna play?”
Usually when I do that in my funny voices, I get smiles, and clapping and giggles. Not this time.
IMMEDIATE banshee screaming, followed by full waterworks. I have no idea what is going on. I know I did something, but I cannot piece it together.
All of this within a few seconds. My family is now screaming NOOOOOOO!!! and my sister WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???
And my niece is now on the floor wailing. Full on crying like I killed a cat or something.
Meanwhile I STILL don’t know what is even happening in this moment. I know I hugged my niece, picked up a doll, and now everyone hates me.
Finally my brother in law sees the scene and saves the day.
“Heeeeeey, it’s ok! Uncle doesn’t live here! It’s powers can only be affected by people who live here?”
And my niece stops crying.
“So Christmas isn’t ruined?”
“No! Christmas is still happening just as normal. Everything is fine.”
My niece gives me a dirty look, and runs off to her room. Then my mom explained what just happened. And now I get it. Would have been helpful to know BEFORE I came over…
And thats the story of how I was the villain who killed a childs Christmas for 45 seconds.
I have hated Elf on a Shelf ever since. Stupid fucking concept. Plus it normalizes mass surveilance. Though, I guess the same is true of Santa Claus. And the Easter Bunny. And God. And The Tooth Fairy.
Though, to be fair, The Tooth Fairy might not actually be engaging in surveilance. Maybe she just has a tooth sensor installed in your pillow. It was never made clear to me the logistics of The Tooth Fairy.
I still don’t.
Basically the parents buy this elf doll. They put it somewhere on in their house. Then they tell their kid to be good for all of December, because this little elf is in your house. The elf is watching everything you do, and reporting back to Santa. But you can’t touch the elf, because when humans are around, the elf has to stiffen up, and pretend to be a doll. If you touch the elf, or move him, he doesn’t like it, and will tell Santa to skip your house on Christmas. So it’s a big deal that elf on the shelf never be physically touched or picked up at all.
Then when the kids leave the room, the parent moves the doll while the kid is away. The kid comes back, see’s the doll moved to the other side of the room, and when the kid asks about it, the parent says “Hmmm? No, I didn’t touch him. He must have just moved over there when we left the room. Don’t touch him! He wants to be over there now.”
So the idea is, you now have this magical creature who runs around seemingly with Toy Story rules, except touching him ruins Christmas. Then I come in and IMMEDIATELY grab him, because all I see is a toy. In my mind I was just happy to play with my niece and was instead met with a full on breakdown.
I only know some friends of mine had this elf thing and would move it every morning before the kids wake up and make him do funny things. Like make him read a book or climb something or whatever. Never heard about the “it will ruin Christmas” thing. I think it’s fairly new invention, based on some children books. Most non-parents don’t know it.
The only thing I can take away from his comment is that the elf is a government surveillance drone
So what’s this elf on the shelf? I only know the Linux one.