Marketing Scheme

Now I would like to think that I give my girls a nice balance of what they want and what they need.  I want to teach them that you don't get everything you want, but as their mom I want to give them so much.  I am not always talking about material things, but in this case yes. 

Thanksgiving was great and we settled down that night to snuggle on the sofa, our evening routine.  The first Christmas shows of the season were on and we were all excited.  We watched Elf on the Shelf and thought it was pretty cute.  I should have hit delete on the DVR.  Over the course of the next three days the girls and I engaged in our Thanksgiving tradition....shopping Black Friday with Stacey, Christmas decorations getting put up, and lots of jammie time just hanging out playing games and watching movies.  After watching Elf on the Shelve for perhaps the 20th time, I got asked the question of the weekend, "Mom can Santa send us an Elf on the Shelf?"  I explained, like most parents, that you can ask Santa for whatever you want, but he has lots of girls and boys to make toys for and you may not get everything you ask for.  To which my way to smart children responded, "But Santa is sending them to all the boys and girls."  What is a mom to do?  You try to explain that everything you see on TV is not real, but when it comes to Santa I am not giving that up yet. 

As we wrote our email to Santa (yes we email Santa instead of mail...come on now with all the technology why write?  I am really wanting for Santa's Facebook and then we can just post our list), and they both asked for Elf on the Shelf I began to see the genius in the cartoon developer.  Make a show the kids love and they will ask their parents for the item.  I am sure this Elf has great qualities and a base of Christmas tradition, but let's get real. 

So this time the girls win and for $29.95 our Elf will be "Santa delivered" by mail this week and the Smith household will be the next proud owners of Elf on the Shelf.  Truth be told he is a cute little guy and the idea behind it all is pretty neat.  That being said...Marking scheme 1 mom 0.