The Elf On The Shelf

Last year, the Elf on the Shelf was fun.  Gabe named him, Kim, and loved to look for him each morning.  If you don't already know about the elf, he's one of Santa's helpers, who comes to your house at Christmas time to watch over you and report back to Santa about your behavior.  Each night, he returns to the North Pole to report; and in the morning, he returns to a different place in the house.  Sometimes, it was stressful when we'd forget to move the elf the night before; but, over all it was fun and pretty effective as far as curbing fresh behavior.

Now that Gabe's a little older and Zach is more aware of things, we thought this would be the best year for our elf.  Wrong.  The first morning that Kim appeared (sitting on the ledge of one of our kitchen windows), Gabe pulled up a chair and climbed up to touch him.  You're not supposed to touch the elf, as it causes his magic to go away.  Gabe knows this.  But he's curious.  Understandable.  He's also too smart.  So, I don't think he's buying into the elf as much.  He kept looking at the elf, trying to get as close as possible, standing on the chair looking right at him.  And I have a feeling that he knows that it's just a stuffed doll.  

The next day, we hid Kim in the closet to make it look like he didn't come back because of the attempts at touching him, etc.  Gabe wasn't too phased by Kim's absence.  Yesterday we put Kim up as high as he can go in the house (on top of the kitchen cabinets), and Gabe was pretty good about leaving him alone.  However, he'd still hit or push Zach right in front of the elf, and reminding him about Kim didn't really do anything.  Hmmmmm.

Today, Gabe was pretty fresh all around.  When I told him that Kim is watching, he said, "but he's still smiling.  He's not angry or upset."  And do you know what?  That elf is always smiling.  What do you say to that?  Argh.  This child of mine is too smart to have fun with the elf this year, I'm afraid.