Monica Donaldson’s lifeless body sunk into the couch in front of the TV. One hand traced the folds in the carpet while the other shielded her eyes from the gold Christmas tree lights. The TV aired an infomercial for an outdoor pizza oven sold by a man with a chizeled face in a Santa hat. A wine glass stood wedged between the backside of the couch and the wall, threatening to spill with each sudden movement but decidedly too exhausted to follow through.
The soft couch cushions reflected Monica’s warmth. She contemplated falling asleep right there. The TV was set to turn off at eleven. The kids’ bedrooms on the next floor had reported no sounds of footsteps for the past hour. All would soon be calm.
She turned away from the TV, pulled the quilt resting at her feet up to her shoulders, and watched the back of the couch fade to black.
Her eyes popped open. The Elf on The Shelf.
She groaned, turning her gaze toward the tree. The family elf, Chipper, sat straddling a shiny gold ornament, in the same place she left him the night before. His tiny red felt suit stood out from her gold and silver ornaments like a kazoo in a symphony orchestra. His signature mischievous grin crawled across his plastic productionalized face.
Moving the elf every morning was the only cardinal rule for “parents,” read: mothers, who invited the Elf on the Shelf into their house, as if it was an option to not to comply with the latest standards of holiday rules and regulations, in hopes of getting high marks in their predestined roles as Household Directors of Holiday Cheer. Lucy Bedford’s mom, Desire, always had an entire scene prepared for their elf, with handsewn outfits and props. Lucy talked about it every day at school before the holiday break, and Rosemary, who was in Lucy’s class, told Monica about it every night at dinner. The Bedfords were next-door neighbors. When Monica and her husband Mark took the kids on vacation to Disneyworld this past summer, Monica gave Desire a key to their house to water their plants. When they returned from the trip, Monica hoped to find her plants in the same condition they were in when she left—but was horrified to find her plants in better condition than ever. Desire had an unexplainable, magical, motherly touch.
Monica bartered with the Fates of holiday cheer. If she sat her alarm to five in the morning, she would wake before any early risers and move the god-forsaken elf. But Monica’s phone had little battery left and would die before the alarm. She had spent the entire night leading up to this moment entertaining her in-laws, so there was little chance her body would naturally rise before nine. Her charger was waiting for her in her room, but the space between the blanket and the couch cushions was so welcoming.
“Don’t worry about it,” a small voice squeaked from the tree. Chipper, still sitting on the ornament, rocked back and forth, riding the ornament like a swing.
He smiled at Monica.
Monica rolled her eyes at her own imagination. She was so exhausted that she was hallucinating a talking elf. But the talking Chipper in her hallucination was wrong. Rosemary would be beside herself if she woke up to discover him in the same spot she found him yesterday. First, she would have nothing to report to Lucy, and second, breaking this holiday rule would challenge all holiday rules and regulations. If Chipper wasn’t magical, was Santa real? Was the Easter Bunny real? Was Jesus real? What was religion anyway? Why did Dad go to church and not Mom?
Gabe, Monica and Mark’s son, wouldn’t care about Chipper at all if it weren’t for Rosemary, and Rosemary was sharp. Worry about it, Monica must.
The ornament holding Chipper continued to swing back and forth.
“The kids won’t even notice if you don’t move me.”
Monica rubbed her eyes. She shamed herself for drinking wine that her brother-in-law made in his garage. It tasted fine once she got past the first five sips, but that was hardly worth the headache and hallucinations that followed. Monica rubbed her temples.
The little voice chirped again. “Look at us. I’m tired. You’re tired. And I’m feeling a bit bloated tonight.”
Monica pulled the quilt up to her chin. She was feeling bloated too. She had three bread rolls at dinner, which were three too many. She could hardly help herself when her mother-in-law pulled out the apple butter from her purse.
Were the Chipper hallucinations merely reflections of her own feelings? Of course they were, Monica thought, because this wasn’t real.
Chipper spoke louder to grab her attention. “Maybe I could fall off this ornament and land upside-down a few branches below!” Chipper beamed with pride at his idea. “That way I’ll have a new spot for tomorrow, and you won’t have to move muscle.”
Monica rolled her eyes and cleared her throat. “No. Each pose has to be totally different than the last.” Monica laughed at herself for humoring her hallucination with a response but decided it was harmless. Who was going to hear her?
Then Monica’s smile faded. “The elf in Desire Bedford’s household is probably riding a unicycle across a tightrope between two dining room chairs as we speak,” she said.
Chipper’s smile froze. “I hate that bastard,” he said as he clinched his fists. “Jolly’s such an attention whore. It’s like we get it. You were made in batch 29475965 and accidently got a sturdier torso. Do we have to applaud your physique because someone pressed the gas a little too hard at the cotton stuffer?” Chipper clapped his hands and feet sarcastically, which nearly caused him to fall off the ornament. His little white gloves clasped the hook urgently and his cheeks turned red.
“That wouldn’t matter.” Monica said. “Desire Bedford works part time. Plus she’s a real estate agent. She could clear her schedule and spend all day plotting the next day’s scene and have time left over to sew a wire up Jolly’s spine if he needed and paint his face like a clown.”
“I bet she doesn’t drink three glasses of wine in a row either.” Chipper used air quotes when he said the word wine.
Although she was hurt by the inanimate toy’s musings, she muttered, “I bet you’re right.” Monica tasted the sour remnants on her tongue.
The TV turned off. Monica and Chipper stared at nothing in particular. The house ceased all sound other than the tick of the analog clock above the fireplace.
Monica rose up up slowly and sat on the edge of the couch. She had an idea. “I’ll stick you in one of the kids’ stockings on the mantel.” She knew it wasn’t the most creative idea, but she wasn’t going for the most creative idea. She was going for any idea.
“You did that on December 3rd.”
Monica sighed. “Then I’ll put you on top of the TV, propped against the remote.”
“You did that on December 12th.”
“Then I’ll place you at the base of the banister by the stairs. If you sit on a piece of paper surrounded by cotton balls, it will look like you sled down a snow hill!”
“You did that on December 23rd—last year.”
Monica put her head in her hands and rested her elbows on her thighs. “I feel trapped,” she whispered.
Chipper let Monica sit in silence, filling the space by making small clicking sounds with his tongue and cracking his knuckles. Then he practiced whistling for a bit until he accidently buzzed his lips and got embarrassed.
Unable to take the silence any longer, Chipper blurted out the following words as if he had wanted to say them for a very long time, as if his voice were helium released from a balloon.
“Put me back in the box!” He said, pleading. “It’s six days until Christmas. Let’s just be proud we made it this far. Consider this my resignation.” Chipper wearily removed a small scroll from his stocking cap and extended it to Monica.
Monica could tell he was serious. Upon closer inspection, his reliably cheery expression was faded, and he slouched over the ornament like a drunken sailor. None of these observations, however, made Monica feel sorry for him. Because no one sat around feeling sorry for her.
Monica stood up and slouched toward Chipper. “We don’t keep boxes in this house,” she said through gritted teeth. “And if I can’t quit, you can’t quit.”
She was eye to eye with Chipper. “We’re in this together.”
Chipper cowered behind the stem of the ornament. “Aren’t we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas?”
“Of course we are,” she said, through a crooked smile.
Monica paced the living room to the tick of the clock. Only an hour later, another idea emerged. She ran out of the living room, down the stairs, and into the kids’ playroom. She grabbed a tiny, elf-sized unicycle from a storage bin and a ruler and paint from Gabe’s art box. With tape and an old glue gun she found in her office, she fashioned a tight rope between two chairs in the dining room. After many tries, she balanced Chipper on top of the unicycle on top of the tightrope. Chipper was now a circus performer completing a rebellious stunt.
Monica was proud of her creation. Chipper was too. She could tell by the smile that she re-painted on his face.
***
The next morning, Monica, drowsy from her tumultuous night, woke from the couch to the sounds of Rosemary and Gabe laughing in the kitchen. To her shock, she found her husband, Mark, and the kids surrounding Chipper, who was wearing a chef’s apron and hat, roasting tiny marshmallows over their stove. Mark handed Monica a cup of coffee and winked his eye.
Monica hung her head and smiled. Of course, she wouldn’t find Chipper crossing a tightrope riding a unicycle. She was certain they didn’t own a tiny unicycle, and the act surely defied the laws of physics.
Monica took the coffee from Mark, her lovely, reliable partner. He had gotten up early and moved Chipper himself. He was there to carry the baton when she was on her last leg. She wasn’t sure how he managed the tiny apron and hat, but she didn’t care. It was no longer her problem.
She winked back at him and give him a hug that lasted precisely seven seconds until the kids asked for breakfast.
After sliding freshly baked cinnamon rolls onto everyone’s plate and pouring four glasses of orange juice, Monica joined Mark and the kids seated around the dining room table. Through bites, Rosemary and Gabe repeated their Christmas wish lists for the hundredth time.
As Gabe distinguished which Lego sets he wanted because they were cool and which he did not want because they were for babies, dummies, or girls, Monica retrieved her phone from the couch and was surprised to find that it still had a small amount of charge left. A text from Desire Bedford sat on the screen that read You’re welcome.
Monica searched through her phone. She had called Desire four times the night before. Her memory was hazy. She wasn’t exactly certain what she would have said to Desire—or Desire’s voicemail—at 2am, 3am, 4am, and 4:05am, but she had a hunch.
She glanced back at Mark, who was still egging Gabe on like a yippy dog.
Thank you, she typed back just before her phone died. And she made a mental note to retrieve the house key she had lent to Desire.
On her way up the stairs she, wondered how Desire seemed to expertly balance the ever-expanding list of requirements for mothers. In her bedroom, she thought about how badly she wanted to sleep through the day, doubting she had the energy to take her kids to see Santa at the mall as planned. As she pulled out her clothes from her closet, she recalled Mark standing in the kitchen, handing her coffee moments before, suddenly his wink felt pervasive and the reciprocation unearned. Brushing her teeth in front of the bathroom mirror, she remembered the baking sheet she left hanging over the edge of the sink, with sticky cinnamon roll residue, and smiled—vowing to leave it there until she died or someone else cleaned it up.
Use Fewer Words 