The Elf Needs A "Come To Jesus" Meeting With Me

We've had our Elf On The Shelf, Buzz Lightyear, since last December. He's been a great addition to our family, until just recently. If you are not familiar with Elf on the Shelf, it's a story about an elf that comes to stay at your house during the Christmas season, and every night he returns to Santa to report on the child's behavior. When the kid wakes up in the morning the elf is always in a new place. The rules are simple enough with the elf; they cannot be touched because they will lose their magical power, and they can listen to the child talk, but the elf can't talk back.

Things had been going great with Buzz, but Jackson seems to have gotten the idea that Buzz is staying in our house so Jackson can tattle to Santa on what Jeremy and I are/are not doing. I've tried telling Jackson that Santa doesn't visit Mommy and Daddy, but it doesn't seem to matter. Every time we turn around, Jackson is running to Buzz to tattle on us, and quite honestly, it's getting old. If Jackson gets mad for a second you hear him running to Buzz and telling him things like:

"Buzz, you need to tell Mommy and Daddy to let me get some candy. They're being mean, and that's not nice!"

"Buzz, Mommy just told me that I can't hang from the ceiling fan with my stuffed snake. That's not fair, and you need to go tell Santa!"

"Buzz, Daddy isn't letting me watch my movie like I want to, and that's being mean and I don't like it one bit!"

As if all the tattling isn't bad enough, it seems that Buzz is now giving Jackson some very bad ideas. In the last few hours, Buzz has convinced Jackson to write on his own face with a marker right before church, and then to open one of his Christmas presents from under the tree. When asked about it, Jackson's only response was, "But Buzz the elf made me do it!"

So now both Jackson and Buzz have been warned that if any more presents are touched before Christmas, Jackson's hiney is going to be worn out. Santa may put the fear in Jackson, but I'm going to end up putting the fear in Buzz!