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If your children have an Elf on the Shelf, you know all too well the “fun” of moving it around every night for an entire month. Even with helpful cheat sheets, the thought of having to find a new place and activity for the little guy every single day just adds to the already stressful holiday season.
That’s why this year, a judge in Georgia has issued a ban on Elf on the Shelf as a Christmas gift to all exhausted parents.
“Tired of living in Elf on the Shelf tyranny? Not looking forward to the Elf forgetting to move and causing your kids emotional distress? I am a public servant and will take the heat for you. My gift to tired parents,” Judge Robert D. Leonard II tweeted this week along with an official legal order. “P.S. – If you love your elf, keep your elf. No contempts.”
Tired of living in Elf on the Shelf tyranny? Not looking forward to the Elf forgetting to move and causing your kids emotional distress? I am a public servant and will take the heat for you. My gift to tired parents.
P.S. – If you love your elf, keep your elf. No contempts. pic.twitter.com/JcqAOljbAS
— Judge Rob Leonard (@JudgeLeonard) November 4, 2021
In the very serious legal document he posted with the tweet, Leonard wrote, “Inexplicably, Elves sometimes move and don’t move overnight. When these Elves do not move, it leaves our children of tender years in states of extreme emotional distress.”
He also recalls an incident in his own home where his children were sent to school in tears, “with one child being labeled an ‘Elf Murderer’ and accused of making the Elf ‘lose his magic.'”
While the order is technically just for Cobb County in the Atlanta area — and is obviously a joke — we won’t tell if you want to use it as a law in your house and banish the somewhat creepy little sprite for the season.
If you’ve decided to skip Elf on the Shelf this year, a great alternative is an advent calendar.
While there are many for adults (which you might need if you decide to keep the elf this year…), there are a handful for kids as well, including what may serve as a great replacement for the Elf on the Shelf: “My Friend Gnome.”
The “My Friend Gnome” kit comes from Aldi and costs $24.99. It packs in a 9-inch gnome doll, storybook and 24 scene props. That means while you will be moving the gnome around every day leading up to Christmas, the scenes are already set, so it’s not on you to think of new ideas every day.
Other advent calendars for kids include a handful from Mattel, like the American Girl: A Dozen Delicious Days countdown, a Fisher-Price Little People advent calendar and a Barbie advent calendar.
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