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This week Phoebe asked me if the Elf on the Shelf was real or if we did it. "I don't mind if it's you," she said, "I've got some good ideas for things the elf could do." She said she thought it was me partly because the Elf had got her the wrong flavour Hubba Bubba on one morning. Though it seemed more likely that an Elf would do that than me. In fact Catie had been in charge of that one, so the fatal clue was not even a good one.
I didn't feel like it was right for me to blow the whole thing without Catie having a say, so I told her honestly that I had not put out the Hubba Bubba. But once we were all together I said to Catie, "Phoebe thinks that we do the Elf on a Shelf" and we gave each other a look to acknowledge that it was time to fess up. We made Phoebe promise not to tell her brother (even if they were having a big row), as Ernie loves the Elf on the Shelf more than anything in the world and she agreed. It felt like she was joining a club rather than having her dreams shattered. To be fair, she had been making plenty of comments voicing her suspicions in December.
"Does that mean Santa isn't real too?" she asked inevitably.
"I don't think it means that, does it?" said Catie and that was enough of a sticking plaster for now. I can't see it holding for another Christmas, but I think Phoebe is nearly ready to take that news on board. Just not yet. I want her to hold on to dreams, real and and imagined, for as long as she can. Before it gets embarrassing at least.
I haven't really been keen on the new tradition of Elf on the Shelf but I like the fact that it has acted as a decompression chamber on this occasion. The smaller lie should make the bigger lie easier to face.
I am not convinced that the news won't be broken to a crying Ernie by an angry Phoebe in some future bust up, but she took it all with great maturity today. I loved the fact that she reassured me that she'd be OK if it had all been a lie.
Whose heart is more at risk, the child or the parent?
