This was the year I had to come clean to my oldest about the Elf on the Shelf.
The magic started off just the same as years before. On December 1, our two elves arrived to the usual excitement and anticipation of our now five- and eight-year-olds. The kids could not wait to see what those silly little elves had done while we were sleeping the night before. The first few days were magical, but then my son started taking it to the next level. He became obsessed with catching the elves in action. He’d stay up late, sneaking downstairs multiple times to check in on them. He was up at the crack of dawn to see if they’d moved. I’m sure his teacher wondered what had happened to our sweet boy, as he trudged through the school day with bags under his eyes and kept nodding off at his desk.
The last straw was when he started leaving nightly challenges for the elves. He demanded that they draw him pictures: a realistic depiction of Santa, a self portrait of the elves, Santa on his sleigh with all the reindeer. And he offered rewards for realism and bonus points for creativity and use of color. I was worn to a frazzle as my nightly sketching sessions stretched into the wee hours of the morning. I carefully shaded Santa’s beard to create a sense of movement for a realistic effect and composed an elf portrait with a blurred background in complementary colors. I was committed to keeping the magic alive.
I crashed into bed exhausted one night, and then I remembered. “I have to go move those silly elves!,” I said to my husband, who was already half asleep. Then I heard rustling in the hallway, and my son’s figure slowly emerged in the doorway.
We had a long talk that night, and when he asked me straight up, I told him the truth.
He admitted to having doubts that the elves were really magic. He wanted to believe in it, but deep down, he knew. To be honest, I was relieved, but also a little sad. Sad because, just like that, everything had changed. As it always does. The traditions that we think will last forever are suddenly gone, and there’s no way to get them back.
It’s like trying to continue childhood traditions after a parent is gone. Or keeping family rituals intact after a divorce. There is really no going back. We can try to recapture the feeling or the magic of what used to be, but it’s never really the same. So we pour our energy into creating and building new traditions. And eventually those change too.
Change is hard for me, even a small one like this.
I’ve spent a lot of time since that night thinking about what is really important in the traditions and the rituals that we go through at Christmastime. I’ve wondered: what is the point of it all if it’s just going to change anyway? What is the constant in all of this Christmas tradition? What is it that’s bigger than me that will last even when I stop wearing myself to a frazzle to keep it alive?
Jesus, of course, and the celebration of his birth are the reason we do all of this. But I’m talking about the things that we do during this season that we assign meaning to. What is the point? The only answer I keep coming back to is being present with the people we love. That is the point. We come up with a million different ways to do this, to make the moment special, and magical, and something our kids will remember long after we’re gone, something that reminds us of our own childhoods and the people we were surrounded with back then. But really, spending time with each other, being present with the people we love – that is what we’re really striving for with all of this stuff we do.
And in my case, sitting on the edge of my son’s bed and having a long talk with him late one night about the elves, and seeing the sweet look on his face when he asked me if they were real. How special it made him feel that I was telling him this special secret, and how deeply grateful I was for this moment with my baby as he grew up a little right before my very eyes.
