Whitney Fleming, a mom and blogger at Playdates on Fridays [1], thought that she had seen the last of her family's Elf on the Shelf, Louie. That is, until she came downstairs one morning to find him atop her coffee machine [2]. In a sweet Facebook post, Whitney explained how despite being 100 percent over the popular family tradition, she just had to give it one more go this year.
"So, I walked down to make my coffee this morning, and this little bugger was sitting on my machine," she wrote. "But I didn't put him there, and neither did my husband [3]. This is the first time in a decade that I'm not moving our elf, Louie, around, and no, I don't miss it that much."
Although Whitney kept up with her Elf on the Shelf routine as best she could, she's the first to admit that moving him every single day got tiresome [4] eventually.
"I was a fair-weather friend to Louie," Whitney said. "Sometimes I was an overachiever and he sat in a bath of marshmallows. Sometimes he swung from our chandelier from fishing wire. Sometimes he was haphazardly thrown into a bowl of fruit at the last second. And sometimes he wasn't feeling well so he stayed in the same spot."
"Whatever traditions you choose to do with your kids, do them with the purposes of spreading a little more joy and love around this year."
Regardless of just how — ahem, lazy — Louie was feeling, there was no denying her children had tons of fond holiday memories with him.
"But man, did my kids love him," she said. "They couldn't wait to see him appear on December 1. They would get up early to run around the house to find him. They wrote him notes the night before he left. And when they were younger, they even behaved a little better because his creepy eyes were always zeroed in on them."
What option did Whitney have other than moving him "year after year?" Not many others! "I complained. I even said I couldn't wait to toss him out with our Christmas tree after the kids stopped caring about him," she explained, adding that now that her kids are older she's holding onto the magic. "My house is full of three tweens/teens who believe the magic of Christmas is real, but they also know who the magicians are."
When Whitney's daughter came down the stairs and saw her mom pouring a cup of coffee, she had to point out how magical Louie was by commenting that "Louie made your coffee this morning, Mom." After replying how nice of a gesture was, her daughter announced that Louie was going "to stick around for one more Christmas."
At first, Whitney admitted she thought her daughter was "going to make this some sort of parental torture," but she agreed to roll with the punches for one reason: spreading Christmas magic.
"Although everyone in our house knows exactly who moves the elf, we all still want to believe in the magic and spread a little joy," Whitney said. "So this holiday season, move the elf or don't move the elf — but whatever traditions you choose to do with your kids, do them with the purposes of spreading a little more joy and love around this year."
Whether it's the holiday season or not, Whitney pointed out that your kids need to believe it something.
"If continuing traditions and creating happy memories and providing just a little bit more joy to my kids is what came out of the hours of stress and lost sleep because of that little guy, then yeah, it was time well spent," she wrote. "You earned yourself another year in our house, Louie. You little bugger."