Ask the "Elf"

I keep seeing love and (more often) hate posts about Elf. Here's my story about a countdown "tradition", which may shed some light on the dilemma about the elf. 

Two years ago I discovered the Lego Christmas village. For around $60 I got a cute little bakery in 600+ pieces with instructions. Then my helpful husband and I spent HOURS on the night of Nov 30 dividing the pieces and directions into 24 bags, one of which was hidden each night for search and assembly the following day. Fun. At first.  By Christmas Eve they were distracted by many other things and had to be encouraged to find the bag. If memory serves we were simply too busy doing other things to actually finish building the thing before Christmas, but we did get to it eventually.

I'm pretty tenacious and having decided that it would be super-fun to do this every year and add a new structure every year and still build the old one . . . well, you see where this is going.  Last year I spent around $100 (these things always seem to get bigger and more expensive) on a house in 1000+ pieces.  I'd learned my lesson about the bags though. If we adults did all the sorting, we ended up spending about 3 times as much time "building" as they did.  So this year, I gave the kids all the pieces and just doled out the directions, hiding a piece of them each day for 24 days.  The first few days were great. By the time I had packed the whole thing up to take with us to Grandma's for Christmas, the shine had worn off and it took direct participation from an adult to get my 9 and 11 year old siblings to work on it at all, especially if it was going to be at all collaborative.  (Did I mention that sibling collaboration was one of the justifications I used for the expense to begin with?)  

So this year I got on and looked for the next new building. (Tenacious, or is that stubborn?) I didn't like any of them. I still like the one with the cool big tree that has always been my favorite, but was a collector's item priced over $200 even the first year I knew about them.  No way I was doing that. I had the good sense to ask myself whether this was a good idea at all, but the really good idea was this: I ASKED MY KID. 

This is the secret. I asked my child what he valued. Was it the new Lego set (for my novelty-focused child)? Sure, he'd like one, but no that wasn't really the thing. Was it the Christmas theme? Not really. It was the searching. That was the most important part. He likes to look for some hidden something. So I took the two Lego sets we already have, and put a random handful of pieces (not quite random, I didn't mix the sets) in each of 24 bags. I hide one each day. If I forget, he reminds me and goes upstairs so I can do my thing.  And each day he sees what he can build, not necessarily in order, on the set.  It's a huge win - it took almost no resources from me and he gets exactly what he loved most about the whole thing to begin with.  

I think the same is true with the Elf. Until you know why it matters to your child, you can't possibly know whether it is a good idea or how to do it best. No, I don't think the magic ("lies") are what count. Let them believe the same way you believe the story of a book or a movie. What counts will be different for each child.  For some it will be the surprise, for others the search. Some will love the humor. For some it will be important because everyone else is doing it. Once you know that, you can decide what makes sense for your family.  If humor is the thing, set it up as a "webcam" and post a different pick of someone else's cute and funny idea on your computer screen each morning. (For the industrious person who can make money off of setting up "webcam app", you're welcome.) If it is the search, find something to hide that feels good to you. If it is being like everyone else, think about that and how you want to encourage that or not in your family. 

Which brings me to the other piece, which is ASK YOURSELF. What do you want to do with your time this Advent? What is meaningful to you? What can you give joyously? Some people just love setting up crafty little scenes. Others don't. If your child loves that little elf, but you hate it and hate doing it but you are doing it anyway, I'd rethink that. The word codependent comes to mind.  

The Lego village and the Elf are not great ideas or horrible ideas, they are just ideas. This holiday season, I hope we will all take the time to ask ourselves and those around us where the meaning is for each of us. Resist the push and pull of tradition and marketing and what everyone else is doing. This year, let it be your holiday in the way that is just right for you and model the same for your children.