Doodie is Watching

Elf on a shelf, Santa's "spy elf" used to control children's behavior around Christmas time. A brilliantly simple idea for manipulating children that's essentially just a little bit of red cloth with a kind of creepy head attached. With the help of it's accomplice adult, the elf is placed up on its perch to observe kids all day long. "Kelly, let's just stop the whining right now. Doodie is watching." Allegedly, the elf makes nightly magical flights back to points north to file "naughty or nice" reports with El Gordo Rojo. I don't personally believe a word of this nonsense, but Kelly seems to change his tune when reminded of Doodie's duty.

Elf on a shelf instruction #1: Name the elf. Kelly named him Doodie, of course. Instruction #2: Do not touch Doodie - the exact same instruction #2 for potty training! As you can see from the photo, Doodie's elf hat (all elves sport a festive, pointy lid) was removed by one Kelly Goodwillie before mom had a chance to read and absorb the importance of rule #2. With luck, this supervisory error will not transfer to potty training.

The other neat Elf on a shelf trick is kids are instructed to tell their elf what they want for Christmas. I asked Kelly to tell Doodie what he wanted for Christmas. Kelly said, "Cars..... and.... a.....baby doll!" He already owns over 60 cars, the match box variety, and one talking baby doll. He jogged into the playroom to retrieve his doll for me to see. On his return Kelly pointed out the fact that the baby was in a basket and mumbled something about changing his stinky diaper. The doll's given name is, yes, "Dukey." Doodie and Duky are quite the pair.