One of the guiding principles for writers is the \u201crule of three.\u201d Basically, using three examples for something tends to work better, especially in comedy. But as Mike, my oldest nephew, recently pointed out, the theory also applies to parenting.<\/p>\n
You see, Mike has three kids with a fourth one on the way. He and his wife both work. In short, they have enough on their hands as it is. He figured the rule of three worked in his favor \u2013 he only had to worry about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy with his kids.<\/p>\n
But some parents just can\u2019t leave well enough alone. Some parents need to up the ante for their kids, thereby potentially putting pressure on other parents to follow suit. Some parents love the Elf on the Shelf.<\/p>\n
Since my stance on this particular new tradition has already generated some heat privately, let me just say that I do love Christmas and really don\u2019t care what other parents do. I just agree with Mike that the Elf can violate the sacred agreement between parents that we stick to the fat man at Christmas, the chocolate-loving bunny and the sprite with a dental fetish.<\/p>\n
The elf might seem like a goofy little tradition that makes the holiday season a little more fun in your house. I don\u2019t doubt that. But think of the 5-year-old who comes home from Christmas wondering why the magical being who visits his friends doesn\u2019t come to his house.<\/p>\n
This is a whole lot different than \u201cWhy can\u2019t I get the bike that Sally has?\u201d because 5-year-olds think of magical elves and bikes as one and the same. The things that someone else has simply exist as temptations regardless of what they are.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s kind of hard to tell your child that the magical elf assigned to your house just really has a busy December because end-of-the-year reports are due and someone has to carpool everyone around town, so there\u2019s just not enough time to move from place to place in the house, all with increasingly humorous situations because what good is a holiday tradition if you can\u2019t share it on Facebook?<\/p>\n
The elf \u2013 which is actually based on a holiday tradition from the family which wrote the 2005 book introducing the craze \u2013 already has complicated rules in place. Children cannot touch the elf. The elf only moves when children are asleep. The elf magically leaves on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n
So to keep the sanctity of the rule of three, let\u2019s add another rule: you can\u2019t tell anyone outside the family about the elf. That way, parents can have their fun little game, kids might be scared into thinking a slip of the lip can ruin everything, and parents who don\u2019t use the elf can blame an older sibling\u2019s big mouth on why the Elf on the Shelf doesn\u2019t come to their house.<\/p>\n
Things already get complicated enough around the holidays with a million Santas running around. We don\u2019t need rogue elves making life more difficult for parents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the guiding principles for writers is the \u201crule of three.\u201d Basically, using three examples for something tends to work better, especially in comedy. But as Mike, my oldest nephew, recently pointed out, the theory also applies to parenting….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,16,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-columns","category-family","category-holidays","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-3-id","wpcat-16-id","wpcat-61-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2165"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2167,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions\/2167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}