Just Call Me Scrooge

I totally fudged some of the applications to be a mom.  Somewhere in there I know it asked whether you had the ability to lie to your children. You know, for the purposes of teeth collecting, Easter basket leaving, and present giving. But lying has never been my forte.  Not that I can't see the occasional benefits of a fib or two, I just have a really hard time doing it successfully.  Mix that with feeling like my kids should always be able to trust what I tell them is the truth, and we have one conflicted mother who really does want to her kids to be swept up in the fun and magic of childhood yet doesn't want them feeling like they were lied to down the road.

So where does that leave poor Santa Claus?

Am I the only mother who doesn't really enjoy perpetuating her children's belief in things that don't exist?  Sure, I'll do it, cause it's fun and magical and you're only a kid once, right? And it's in my job description.  But I kind of just scrape by.  I don't go the extra mile or anything. We haven't made reindeer food. The Tooth Fairy needs a reminder app and I eat Santa's cookies grudgingly (ok, not really on that last part).

So what about this Elf on the Shelf character?

source

Have you heard of him?  He sits on the shelf taking notes and reports to Santa each night.  And when he flies back in the early morning from the North Pole he sits in a new spot just to make sure the kids know that he's doing his job.  Sometimes he does crazy stuff, like dump out your oatmeal or unroll all the toilet paper.

As you might have guessed I have not rushed out to buy this extra, non-essential, Christmas accessory.

Ava, however, swimming blissfully in Childhood Magic, caught the Hallmark Channel's animated version of the Elf on Shelf this past week.  And then, by her own device and design, came up with this:

Chipee, the Elf on Our Shelf

She wondered if maybe he might be magic, too.

"I don't know," I told her.

She went to bed.  I cleaned up.  The next morning she ran down and saw that Chipee had moved to the other end of the counter!  And then she wanted to know, "Did you move him, Mom?"

And there I stood at the crossroads.

Tell the truth or indulge my baby doll?

I thought about the previous night.  I had absolutely no recollection of moving him, but must have when I wiped down the counters.

So I did my best, and probably what most moms would have done (though surely minus some of the fanfare) and told her,

"I don't know how Chipee got over there!"

Dan came home from a business trip last night. I showed him Chipee.  I told him my hesitations and concerns, he patted my back and moved Chipee into the family room.  This morning when I woke Ava for school I was kind of excited. I told her, "Get dressed, let's go look for Chipee! He's not on the counter anymore!"

Her groggy face lit up like a thousand stars and she jumped right up.

We found him on the family room shelf.

"I think he is magic, Mom! He must have gone back to Santa last night! You didn't move him, did you, Mom?"

And without a second thought I said, "I didn't touch him."

 And it wasn't even a lie.