Elf on a Shelf? I keep seeing these “Elf on the Shelf” postings, describing it as a Christmas Tradition and I came to wonder, just how old a ‘tradition’ it is? Apparently the book was published in 2005, so it is a very ‘ancient’ and ‘venerable’ tradition indeed; perhaps it will be eventually. I must admit, for some reason now it irritates me, likely I am getting crankier in my old age; maybe it is because of that silly smile on his face. {I’ll admit I like the post I saw where he poops Hershey Kisses!} I was watching a bit of the “Santa Clause” on television tonight and seeing how the elves were periodically mixing in with the crowd reminded me about my own experience with ‘real’ elves. When I was young and growing up on Oak Avenue in Oakwood, I guess it was about 1960, as a way to ensure or at least encourage behavior acceptable to my parents, my sister and I were regularly warned that Santa’s Elves could be looking in the windows at us when we least expected it. The Christmas preparations, cooking, cleaning, decorating and shopping always stressed out my Mother, and she invariably and predictably cancelled Christmas at least three times every year. There was a time when that rant truly upset me, but eventually I wised up. I firmly believed the elves were spying on us, because I had actually seen elves in the flesh. When I was three I nearly died from pneumonia and ended up eventually in Richmond Memorial Hospital where a then pretty new Dr., Doctor Patrick a pediatrician who subsequently became my doctor, with his office on New Dorp Lane, managed to save my life after another old doctor repeatedly screwed up. I know I spent some time tied down inside an oxygen tent as I had ripped the first one they tried apart. I know for years I had nightmares about that hospital stay. In the time period before being admitted to the hospital I had several incidents of hallucinations brought on by the extremely high fever I was enduring, a couple were terrifying as the entire living room and myself were covered in large insects. Despite knowing very well today that these were in fact a hallucination, I can still see them. The other hallucination, and the one that is relevant to this tale occurred on the night I actually went to and was admitted to the hospital. My Dad sat up with me before the fireplace, which was not then lit but decorated for Christmas with some pinecone angels they had gotten somewhere as well as some reindeer and various wax candles representing snowmen, trees, and figures and some other assorted figures spaced along a plastic garland of Holly leaves. I suppose he was spelling my Mom to allow her to catch a little sleep; according to them my fever was running pretty high all day and they had done the whole cool bath and aspirin thing. We ended up falling asleep, at some point I must have woken up, and all of those figures had come to life and were moving and dancing about on the mantle. Rather than being terrified as I had been at the large crawly insects I was completely amazed and bemused by what I saw and despite knowing later that I came quite close to death later that night, it is nonetheless one of my very favorite Christmas memories. Many was the night after that, I would lie on that couch listening to my parents Christmas records and watching those figures with one eye open while feigning sleep in the lights of the Christmas bulbs, hoping to watch them at it again. I would always after that look suddenly out of the window, hoping to catch one of those elves my folks warned me about in the act, but I was never quick enough. I know that Elves are real, when they want to be, having seen them in action but I never could catch them. I also would frequently watch red lights in the sky hoping to catch a glimpse of Rudolph. What did your parents tell you as a child to compel you to be good and restrain your exuberant behavior as the excitement and magic of the Christmas Holiday approached and you began to lose your minds? I consider myself lucky only to have had Elves to contend with. My wife’s aunt regaled she and her sisters with tales of the ‘Luba Noche’, or ‘Christmas Werewolf’ that would slaughter and consume any child who was late for Midnight Mass. I remember sitting with my wife when we first started dating and listening to her tell that tale and even at 16, watching those black intense eyes and hearing the absolute conviction in her voice; sent shivers up my spine. https://img0.etsystatic/000/0/5264348/il_570xN.287980908.jpg (These are an assortment of the elves on our mantlepiece)
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 07:15:31 +0000
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