I don't understand all the hate for Elf on the shelf.

My grand kids love Christmas time and look forward to it every year, including "Speedy" and "Tito".

The day will come soon enough that the excitement of the season won't be the same for them, but anything we (as parents or grand parents) can do to make it as wonderful for them as we can is important IMO.

JCRiley09 said:

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https://reason.com/blog/2014/12/18/elf-on-the-shelf-isnt-just-creepy-its-te

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This article should be about (((mench on a bench))) since we all know the surveillance state is the natural result of the (((globalist))) efforts of the Illuminati.

Nope, not doing it.

I once heard a funny story about a young family that tried the Elf on the Shelf thing during Christmas 2012, the same year as the Mayan Calendar thing. One of their children was autistic and had become obsessed with the Mayan countdown. Every morning, no matter where the parents put the Elf, it would end up on the Dad's nightstand by the next morning with a sticky note saying "XX Days Until The End Of the World". I now always thing of that when I see those things.

mrad85 said:

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I don't understand all the hate for Elf on the shelf.

My grand kids love Christmas time and look forward to it every year, including "Speedy" and "Tito".

The day will come soon enough that the excitement of the season won't be the same for them, but anything we (as parents or grand parents) can do to make it as wonderful for them as we can is important IMO.

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Code words for tequila and vodka.

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The day will come soon enough that the excitement of the season won't be the same for them, but anything we (as parents or grand parents) can do to make it as wonderful for them as we can is important IMO.

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Why? We don't do santa at all and my kids still go nuts for presents and the whole season. It's not even for religious reasons - just don't like lieing to them and figured why not just cut directly to "gifts from family are awesome".

I don't get the "not lying to them", because a little "magical fantasy" doesn't hurt, in my experience, but you do you.

As for us, we still do Santa (our's are 28) and they love it. They know the "truth" but don't care. And I still read The Night Before Christmas, too, but that may be on hold for a while since they can't always come here at the same time for the holidays.

How do you handle your kids' friends belief in Santa? Do you tell your kids not to talk about it at school? How does that work?

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I don't get the "not lying to them", because a little "magical fantasy" doesn't hurt, in my experience, but you do you.

As for us, we still do Santa (our's are 28) and they love it. They know the "truth" but don't care. And I still read The Night Before Christmas, too, but that may be on hold for a while since they can't always come here at the same time for the holidays.

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What's there not to get? You''re lying to them to make yourself experience something. You (the general you) want the joy of seeing them excited about a mythical person who delivers gifts...I just think it's bizarre. It's even selfish if you think about it.

Honestly, how you do it at 28 is how we do it at 7, 4 and 2. We still do all the Santa stuff, we just talk about it like he's a fun tradition and not real. Gifts come from us, grandparents, etc and they have do thank yous for them. We have already read them the Night Before Christmas as part of our normal book reading time and they are still love it.

Note: my initial comment was a refute that you had to have this kids believe in Santa thing for the "excitement" of the season. Maybe I was reading the wrong thing into it.

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How do you handle your kids' friends belief in Santa? Do you tell your kids not to talk about it at school? How does that work?

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As you might expect, some hits and some swings and misses. We tell them not to ruin it for other kids, but my 4 year old already told the neighbor girl that hes not real...and we had to smooth that over with her parents. We had intentions of talking to them beforehand just so they were aware, but we didn't do a good job of that.

I try and be sensitive to other parents desires for their kids, and they have a right to be pissed if their "lie" is burst...but I also see it no different than if we were Jewish.

diehard03 said:

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What's there not to get? You''re lying to them to make yourself experience something. You (the general you) want the joy of seeing them excited about a mythical person who delivers gifts...I just think it's bizarre. It's even selfish if you think about it.
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This is not even close to right. It's to have THEM experience something. Yeah, we get to experience it with them and get joy from it, but selfish? Only in the sense that nothing is ever done completely altruistically.

Dammit. Someone already made that joke.

Flashdiaz said:

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sounds selfish that a reason you don't do it is so your kids can thank you for giving them presents.

I bet you don't celebrate their birthday's either because the reality is that it's just one year closer to their deaths if they even die of natural causes that is.

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Regardless of how they die, isn't it still one year closer to their death?

We gave a friend a birthday card that said something like that, "Happy birthday! You're a day closer to death".

The next day she had a heart attack. It was very mild and she's fine, but we felt really bad.

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sounds selfish that a reason you don't do it is so your kids can thank you for giving them presents.

I bet you don't celebrate their birthday's either because the reality is that it's just one year closer to their deaths if they even die of natural causes that is.

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You're welcome to infer that, but that's not a reason for us.

Of course we celebrate birthdays. It's an appropriate milestone to make someone else feel special just because they exist.