"Fat to Fittie"

Only an idiot would add to the stress of Christmas and nothing has contributed to this more, than the ridiculous idea of moving a cheap crappy doll around your house for 24 days. If you’re not familiar with the Elf on a shelf, he arrives the first of December at your home and stays until Christmas eve, he basically spies on your kids to make sure they’ve been good and reports back to Santa. Since it’s introduction in 2005 by an American lady who clearly thought parents should have a bit more workload added to their busy schedule, the elf has pretty much taken over the run up to the big day. Thank god my kids have grown up and I only have to do it for grandchildren, who don’t come too often, in fact I’ve not seen them once since the first, so he’s still sat in the same place, holding a cheeky glass of Port in his flat felt hands.

It’s become an obsession with parents trying to out do each other, with the bar being raised each year. Videos are posted on social media proudly showing what the elf’s been up to while everyone was sleeping, with people now actually capturing footage of him moving to show their kids, what’s wrong, don’t they have jobs? Over the years what the Elf gets up to has changed dramatically, it used to be a bit of fun with them playing tricks like drawing on toilet rolls to make a snowmen or fishing in the toilet bowl, now it’s full on carnage and it depends on where you live as to how serious it gets. People living in sleepy English villages are depicting them grating a potato into chips at the very worst, while Glasgow parents have them cutting the heads off soft toys and re-constructing a mugging at a bus stop using crinkle cut crisps as knives with huge dollops of tomato sauce.

There are some who believe the elf actually has a serious impact on brainwashing kids, claiming it’s teaching them to accept non consensual surveillance is normal and akin to George’s Orwell’s vision in 1984. There’s also the lack or interaction that some therapists claim is a problem, as kids aren’t allowed to touch the elf, lets not forget the obvious oxymoron, the elf is supposed to be making sure kids are behaving themselves, yet himself gets up to mischief and naughty acts. It won’t be long till someone has him actually crapping on food with real poo and not just a chocolate substitute, my money’s on that starting in Manchester. There really is nothing else for it, the madness has to end, do yourself and your kids a favour, stick the elf in plastic tub full of water and put him in the freezer. The next morning place him in the fridge and tell the kids Santa has permanently frozen him for being naughty, pretty sure that’s gonna keep them in line till the 24th.