(S)elf-indulgence

Last year, someone gave my family an "Elf on the Shelf." If you're not familiar with it, it's essentially a small elf in a box and a book. The book tells you that you're supposed to hide the elf each night during the holiday season and let your kids find it. It's magic or a messenger of Santa or something. It was wildly popular last year and is probably continuing to sell well this Christmas too.

But as I started to think about the whole "real meaning of Christmas" debate and "is Santa bad" discussion that you almost are required by law to have if you’re a Christian blogger, I started to think about that elf. He was just sitting there with a smug look on his face perched on the fireplace mantle looming over our nativity scene below on the hearth. Instead of the traditional Santa vs. Jesus discussion, I began to imagine what would happen if that elf ever ran into the characters from the nativity scene. What would that conversation look like? I present you:

Elf on the shelf meets the characters from the nativity scene.{continue...}

[via Stuff Christians Like]