Elf On The Shelf Cheat Sheets Exist Because Ain't Nobody Got Time For This

There are cheat sheets to help you slack your way through Elf on the Shelf season

If your house is home to an Elf on the Shelf, then you know how hard it is to come up with new places and poses for that little felt demon all month long. Because let’s face it — playing with a doll isn’t nearly as much fun as an adult as it was when you were a kid. But the thing about the Elf is that once you’re in on December 1st, you’re committed until Christmas. You’ve signed an oath in blood (or was it melted peppermints?) and you can’t quit unless you’ve got a seriously good explanation/lie crafted to tell the kids. Basically the Elf on the Shelf is stressful AF, which is why some parents are putting together these handy cheat sheets to help us all make it to New Years.

Like Cliff’s Notes back in college, these pre-made calendars do all of the hard work for you.

They give you quick and easy ideas of what to do with your Elf every night until Christmas.This way you’re not standing there clutching an Elf and a fistful of pipe cleaners at 11 pm with that panicked feeling in your stomach like you get the night before the science fair when you know you have to pull something off, but you’re fresh out of ideas.

Bless the folks who have the time, energy, and Microsoft Word skills to come up with these cheat sheets — and I say that with total sincerity.

If doing Elf on the Shelf is your jam, and you love coming up with your own creative scenes to surprise and delight your kids every morning, go forth and be jolly. The rest of us are just looking for ways to get to our Netflix and potato chips faster after the kids go to bed, and these cheat sheets can help make it happen.

Between shopping, decorating, and usual stuff I have to do in December like work and grocery shop and make sure the kids floss because the dentist totally knew I was lying when I said they did it regularly, I don’t have brain space left over to come with 25 ways to make the Elf shit magic for my kids each morning. But I can follow directions like a boss, as evidenced by my ability to make a box of Kraft Dinner perfectly every time. So when this calendar tells me to have the Elf “replace the stockings with the children’s underwear” or “zipline from a candy cane,” I’m on it.

Is this a lot of work for a fake doll, even with a cheat sheet for help? Isn’t the magic of Christmas enough? Should we all just stop the madness of the poses and the props and these cheat sheets and burn these little monsters in a giant bonfire? Yes, yes, and perhaps. But if the threat of this glassy-eyed spy tattling on my kids to Santa will stop even one tantrum this December, I’m pressing print on all these cheat sheets.