American Dream Book: Horrible Elves Observe,Spy on American Kids

There is a new tradition in America that began just couple of years ago but has already become, terribly so, as popular as Christmas trees, Santa Claus and presents. It is called “the elf on the shelf.”

In English it sounds nice because it rhymes: ”Elf on the shelf.” The name as well as the character of the elf reproduced in pictures, sold as mascots, puzzles and more, seems to be likeable. It is a little innocent boy in a red suit and long hat, similar to the one Santa Claus wears.

However don’t be fooled by appearances! It is one of the ugliest and most dangerous creatures that appears during Christmas in the United States. What’s worse, the “elf on a shelf” is not a single pest, but constitutes a multimillion figure army, as each child has its own elf on the shelf.

Two seemingly inconspicuous women, Carol Aebrsold and her daughter Chanda Bell who wrote the children’s book “Elf on the Shelf” in 2005are responsible. They created the story while drinking morning tea and published it at their own expense. We read in the book that each child owns an elf who secretly watches them every day, most of the time from some shelf. In the evening when the child goes to sleep, the elf goes to the North Pole and reports back to his boss, Santa Claus. On the basis of those daily reports, Santa Claus decides which children were good, and deserve a gift — and which were not.

Elves on the shelf are, therefore, informers — narcs as well as plants — and constantly monitor millions of American children. However, not many in the U.S. think so. Spies for Santa Claus are traditionally liked and foolishly promoted.

Some six million copies of ”Elf on the Shelf” have been sold. In 2011, CBS television made a movie based on the book. In 2012, a huge inflatable elf was carried through Manhattan streets in the annual Thanksgiving Day parade. It is so embedded in American culture now that it will be part of such culture forever. Parents, who are especially busy before Christmas, often warn their children to be nice because the elf on the shelf is looking, and they might not get a present!

It seems there might have been an opportunity to come to one’s senses and reflect on “elfomania” during the uproar unleashed in 2013 by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency employee. He fled to Russia and revealed that the U.S. government ran a mass surveillance program involving the Internet and telephone communications in America and abroad. In addition, on Christmas this year, the NSA quietly disclosed a report about the abuse of surveillance programs, something the NSA had to do in response to privacy law advocates who demanded the disclosures as part of American transparency in public life. This is how we learned that certain NSA employees eavesdropped on their lovers, gathered telephone numbers that their spouses used and more.

Still, with respect to “the elf on the shelf,” there is no self-reflection, there are only single voices which vainly cry out in the wilderness. Professor Laura Pinto of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology claims that “elf on the shelf” prepares the younger generation for living in a common surveillance society. “Children learn to be blindly obedient and give up privacy in favor of an exterior, hegemonic power,” claims the Canadian scholar. “If you grow up thinking it’s cool for the elves to watch me and report back to Santa, well, then it’s cool for the NSA to watch me and report back to the government.”

Total glorification of surveillance is not the only problem with “Elf on the shelf.” What is worse, as Kelsey McKinley notes on the Vox portal, is the demoralization of children, who may think that beating up their younger sister is inappropriate only because they are being constantly watched and may not receive a present. And what happens when they are not being watched by anyone? Then they learn they can do what they want because the elf is not there! This state of impunity lasts 11 long months, because after Christmas, the “elf on the shelf” disappears and returns only after Thanksgiving Day, which is in November, to begin a new surveillance season.