The House Watcher’s Smile

The Elf on the Shelf, Episode 7: Unmasking.

I stopped calling it "the elf." Names make things feel manageable.

This wasn't manageable. I found an old forum thread buried under years of holiday posts.

Half the comments were deleted. The ones left were written like confessionals from people

who sounded exhausted. One person wrote, "'It's older than the story,

older than Santa. It's a house watcher.'" Another wrote, "'We used to

place them during hunger years, during war, during collapse.'" And then I

found the word that made my stomach drop: altar. The shelf was