Friday, December 12, 2014

Elf On The Shelf Gender Confusion

This is going to be a longish and confusing story, so try and stay with me, okay?

I'm sure you've all heard of the Elf On The Shelf, am I right? If you haven't, you can read about it here.

Anyway, I decided this year that I wanted to get an Elf On The Shelf because when I was a kid I had a very similar toy, however, it was called a Magic Pixie. And the reason we referred to it as "magic" was because the pixie would miraculously come alive at night and move to different locations within our home (like the den, the kitchen, or the living room) while we were asleep. We would wake up every morning and anxiously find where the pixie had relocated, not ever realizing that my mother or father had moved it after we went to bed at night.

It was a fun game we played during the Christmas holiday that still makes me smile whenever I think about it.

Monday, I stopped by Barnes and Noble to see if I could find an Elf On A Shelf because I remembered seeing them there last year. And sure enough, they had them in stock again.

HOWEVER...

I was not about to fork out $29.95 for an elf. Granted, it also came with a storybook but I wasn't interested in purchasing the book, I only wanted the elf. After looking around for a few minutes, I noticed that they also sold elves separately. They weren't the small, traditional elves, but a larger and more plush version. So decided to buy one (for $12.95).

And can I just tell you how excited I was to get home and take it out of the box and then place it next to my tiny Christmas tree? I also planned to give my elf a name - Scott.

Now this is where the story gets confusing.

I took a picture of the elf inside the box before I opened it because I knew I wanted to post about it this week.

Here it is still boxed...

Cute, hu?

But do you have any idea how perplexed I was when I took it out of the box and saw this?

Yes, Scott was wearing a SKIRT. I thought, WTF!?! I immediately grabbed the box and looked for any information that might give me a clue as to why this boy elf was cross-dressing, but found nothing.

I thought perhaps the manufacturers had packaged him wrong and made a mistake.

I saw that the skirt had a piece of Velcro on the back, so I removed it. Here is Scott without the skirt...

Later that day, I went online and did some product research at the Elf On The Shelf website and discovered that the elves came in genders. It was clear that I had accidentally purchased a female instead of a male. Ooops!

You can see the difference in the eyes, the rosier cheeks and lip color; not to mention the skirt. And yet, I didn't even notice the skirt inside the box.

Oh well, I have more female friends than male, so I guess it's only natural I picked a female elf.

Therefore, I changed the name from Scott to Shannon.

Shannon is such a delightful elf. She is down to earth and not a frilly kind of gal. As a matter of fact, she asked not to put her skirt back on because she likes the freedom of going skirtless.

She loves that my apartment is on a 20-something floor and enjoys sitting on the window sill, peering out over the city. Shannon LOVES high heights and has already asked to go bungee jumping in the Spring.

In fact, one day she got overzealous and tried jumping out the window by taking a flying leap, but forgot that the window was closed and broke her nose...

Yesterday morning I heard a voice coming from my bathroom, "Ronnie...could you hand me the roll of toilet paper please? I can't reach it."

And when I opened the door, I saw this...