Arrival of elf on the shelf

I was avoiding Elf on the Shelf.  I didn't want to start this little craze at our house as first learned about it a few years ago and certainly not after it became a sensation that has taken over as this new Christmas tradition that everyone does. Plus, I don't want to tell the kids to "be good" just because an elf or Santa is watching them.  But, there is a story to share about how we came to meet Cheerio.

It started with Jingle, the elf that visits the kindergarten classroom.  He was an obsession for the class and if I only heard one story about the school day it was probably about where Jingle was hiding. Not only was there Jingle, but I think that every other child in Evan's class had a similar visitor to their houses.  The hiding places of those elves were the hot conversation topic.  After this started a couple weeks ago, Evan has said "we need to find our elf" in a way that showed he assumed that all houses had a magical elf that visited from the North Pole everyday and reported back to Santa each night and then took on a new hiding place.  I would then switch topics or tell we could do that after dinner or something.  Well, one day we were talking about how Jude told Evan that he was 6.  And I told Evan that I knew that Jude was 5 and that he may have told a lie and that sometimes kids lie even though it is not right.  Evan: "Mom, I told the kids at school that our elf was in the fridge."  That made me a little sad.  He wanted so much to share in the stories of the magical elves with his friends and lied to fit in.  I certainly don't think he should have everything that the other kids have.  But how can you explain why you don't have a magical elf that visits your house to a 5-year-old?  It is not like a video game can you can just say that we don't need to have that just because "so and so has it".  It is magic.  And why would magic avoid entering our world.  It is a little bit like if Santa didn't visit our house.  So, that night Tony went to but one and we put him in a bowl of Cheerios on the table so Evan would find him in the morning.  Evan was surprised and quietly amazed,mostly just staring at him during breakfast.  And that is how we met Cheerio!