Elves freak me out. You can just never be sure what you’re getting when you meet an elf. They might be the kind of elf that bakes delicious cookies inside of a hollow tree or they can be the kind that fight the Orcs to the death in those Lord of the Rings movie. Or they can be the kind of elves that help Santa make toys for all the boys and girls, even though I hear that one of them wants to get into the field of dentistry. You just never know about elves.

My wife was talking with my mother the other day (I’ve found that almost nothing any good ever comes from a sentence that starts out with those words,) and somehow their discussion got around to the subject of those little “Elf on the Shelf” dolls that you’ll see in peoples homes around the holidays. My wife talked about how cute she thought they looked and that she was thinking about getting one for our house. My Mom mentioned that my wife didn’t need to buy one because she had some of the old original ones locked away in her storage room.

I’ve been reading up on the tradition of the “Elf on the Shelf” and it sounds all nice and innocent. The story goes that the elves will sit in people’s homes during the day (evidently on a shelf) taking mental notes of all the deeds, both good and bad, that they witnessed that day so they can make a full report to Santa each and every night after everyone in the house has gone to bed. Usually when they come back from the North Pole, they will pop up in different spots each morning. I guess that’s part of their endearing charm.