[M.D. Holloway]

Last week our Son comes home with some myth/hype/product conception of an elf that will come to your home if you put out graham crackers and milk. Three nights in a row as well as a hand written note asking for the elf to visit - the elf will eat the crackers each night and on the third night will appear in the form of a ceramic elf figurine. After he appears, he will watch you through out the holiday season to make sure you are good and will report back to Santa. He got this idea from some kids Mom who helps out the class.

So here is the kicker, come to find out this whole thing was started by some other Mom who has had a bunch of these elf’s made, written a book about it and has basically marketed yet another Christmas season concept for our children to gravitate towards! I’m just pissed I didn’t think of it first.

Never being the ones to be left out of the ‘popular thing’ but also not willing to drop $$$ for a silly elf made of fragile ceramic and a book that is marginal my Wife picked up a little stuffed elf at Garden Ridge. Of course after three days of eating Graham crackers and milk the elf arrived – one for each of them so no problems would arise.

Now I have to hear that the elf he has isn’t the “real” one and that it’s a fake. Enter the discussion about beliefs again. I guess a few of the kids told him that his elf is not the true elf. So we discussed the concepts again. It’s OK for others to believe what they believe as long as
1) it doesn’t hurt you
2) it doesn’t take anything from you
They believe what they believe, you believe what you believe and as long as you don’t hurt them or steal from them with your beliefs either than all is good. I told him that if any of the kids don’t understand that maybe they should stop and think about how they would feel if someone said stuff like that to them. You know the Golden rule and all that. And if all else fails your bigger than they are so just get in their face and tell them that their Christmas would suck with a black eye! (No, I didn’t tell him that – but the little man inside me wanted to!).

But on a much broader, more serious note, what a great example of exactly what Christmas isn’t about. Not the commercialism but rather ridiculing others for not believing in something. Didn’t someone get hung on a cross for that?