T. GAMBLE: An elfing blast from Christmas past

As last year rolled on by, I reflected on times past, especially Christmas. You know nothing is more magical than Christmas, especially if you have little ones. But I have to say the woman who invented Elf on a Shelf should at the very least be tarred and feathered. In fact, there may be a special place in hell for her.

Now please understand, I do not know Ms. Carol Aebersold. She invented Elf on a Shelf, and last I saw her company was worth almost $100 million. I’d rather she had made the money doing something more admirable like selling crack cocaine. You see she invented the Elf in 2005. My Princess daughter was 2 years old, and the Hurricane boy was just priming into action as a 1-year-old. So their whole life, Elf on a Shelf was part of the Christmas tradition, like stockings and a tree. But, you don’t have to move a tree or stocking every 24 hours.

Listen, Christmas is stressful enough without me having to explain why the Elf did not move for two days and trying to find a new place to put him without getting caught.

Nothing is worse than finally climbing into bed only to realize that I’d forgot to move the Elf from peering over the stove, and he now needed to go behind the TV in the den. I mean Christmas Eve is bad enough without the Elf added in.

I had to hide the gifts at my law office, get up at 3 a.m., sneak in the house to distribute the gifts around the tree and then deal with the Elf? Of course, as soon as Christmas ended, we had to hide the Elf until the next year. Twice I hid the Elf and he was never found again, forcing a repurchase of the Elf and fear he would pop up in a drawer somewhere before the next Christmas.

In fact, one year after Christmas, the whole family was coming back from eating at a restaurant. We came by a pond full of geese. I stopped so the 5-year-old Princess and 4-year-old full-bore CAT 5 Hurricane boy could see the geese. Don’t ask me why I thought that was a good idea, poor geese.

Before we got out of the car, my wife needed something out of the glove box. I opened it up, and there he reclined, in all his glory. This red devil from the pit of hell, Elf on the Shelf, staring that cherublike smile and gleaming blue eyes.

My daughter gasped, “Daddy, it’s Elf on a Shelf. What is he doing in the glove box?”

I shut the box like it contained nuclear waste material and did what any self-respecting parent would do. I flat out lied.

“There is no Elf in the glove box,” I said. “You are imaging things. Now be quiet.”

I’m surprised this lie did not result in years of therapy for the Princess as she protested that she knew full well what she had seen and demanded to see in the glove box. I refused and used my next best skill, after lying, by trying the ole diversionary maneuver.

Yep, I forced her out of the car and exclaimed, “Look, look at the geese! Aren’t they amazing!”

I’m not sure if you know this or not, but diverting a child from that which has their attention is like trying to hand-pull 6-foot-tall pigweed from a dry clay field. The chances of me successfully diverting her attention were about the same as if J-Lo walked by naked and my wife told me not to look.

I did finally manage to get her away from the car and toward the geese. She seemed somewhat interested, and then I looked away for just a moment. When I looked back she was in a full sprint back to the car where she meant she was going to open that glove box and prove Redcoat, his name to us, was in that box. I pulled both hamstrings and needed oxygen for two days but I beat her by a step back to the car. I refused entry to the glove box. She fussed the rest of the way home.

Once home, I removed Redcoat and hid him once again. She asked about it from time to time and I did again what all good parents do: I lied. And Carol, it is all your fault.