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The sudden realisation that they’ve forgotten to move their son’s Elf on the Shelf has parents scrambling about in the middle of the night desperately trying not to ruin the magic of Christmas forever.
Elf on the Shelf. What a wonderful idea. A way to imbue your home with Christmas spirit and bring joy and excitement to your precious little ones.
That is, until day three when you realise what a total ballache the whole thing is.
“After the elf had hidden under the tree, eaten some chocolates and made a bit of a mess by unravelling a toilet roll, I was all out of ideas,” said parent Simon Williams.
“After a week I started to forget about moving the bloody thing, only to remember in the small hours. Then I had to trudge downstairs, trying to spur my weary brain into some sort of magical creativity.
“I wouldn’t bother, but there’s only so many times you can say, ‘Ah, he’s obviously tricked you by not doing anything – the very last thing you expected!’ before your six-year-old realises that it’s all a load of bollocks.
“And if the Elf is nonsense – what about Santa? I might need to find a way for the elf to kill himself by misadventure…”
Simon’s son Jake knows the elf isn’t actually magic.
“It’s a plastic toy,” he said. “It’s probably not going to come to life at night and behave just badly enough so that dad doesn’t have to spend too much time clearing up in the morning.
“However, my suspicions were really confirmed on day five when the elf apparently drank half a bottle of Scotch and wanked into one of dad’s socks.
“To be honest, that wasn’t very Christmassy.”
