#not that someone has dumped a huge pile of the things in vakama's office for him to try and sort through

[magicalgirlmascot]

Some well-meaning person (probably one of the kids’ parents) has genorously gifted each KNPS teacher an 🎄🧑‍🎄Elf On The Shelf🧑‍🎄🎄(TM) to use in their classroom! …How do each of them respond to this?

Oh boy oh boy

Let's go in order by grade

Gali and Lewa: Gali very politely thanks the parent but explains that one of their students is terrified of dolls and so they can't have any in the classroom. Thankfully the parent is understanding and leaves. Afterwards Lewa asks which student it is and Gali admits that she made it up on the spot

Onua: accepts the toy and then has no idea what to do with it. He's not putting it up in his classroom anywhere, that's for sure. Takes it home to his apartment where Lewa draws a handlebar mustache and angry eyebrows on it with Sharpie and names it something like Snidely Whiplash or Dan Backslide.

Pohatu: pretends to be Buddhist to get out of it. Is not Buddhist.

Kopaka: stands silently with his arms folded and glaring at the person trying to hand it to him until they give up and leave. Is complained about to Nokama for this.

Tahu: explains (loudly and with great annoyance) that he teaches teenagers and if he put anything in his classroom that even remotely implied that he expected them to believe in Santa at their age he'd never have their respect again. He has one (1) student who he's pretty sure still genuinely believes but he also spent his whole summer running around in the woods looking for werebeasts so like, not indicative of the class as a whole. Is complained about to Nokama for this.

BONUS

Vakama: takes the toy and exclusively hides it in teachers' mailboxes. Continuously expresses surprise and annoyance when it inevitably freaks the hell out of some hapless employee, convincing most people that he didn't know it was there either. Matau is so proud. This ends when Onewa rips the head off the thing and throws it in the trash after finding it in his mailbox for the third time in the same week.

Nokama: accepts it and donates it to a local toy drive.

Matau: explains for the fifth year in a row that he is not a teacher and does not have a classroom, and if he decided to try hiding it around the school somewhere Cahdok and Gahdok would have his head on a plate.

Whenua: goes on a rant about how the marketing around the toy is misleading, deliberately designed to play to a false sense of nostalgia. Elf on a Shelf was made to look like an old fashioned toy and marketed as "a Christmas tradition" from the instant it hit shelves, despite the fact that this was in 2005 and it's not as old a tradition as people like to think. For that matter, Santa Claus as we know him was made up by an advertising company to sell soft drinks. If he's going to be doing anything with regards to holiday traditions, they're going to be actually well researched historical traditions from a variety of winter holidays, thank you. Is complained about to Nokama for this.

Nuju: looks at the parent. Looks at the toy. Looks at the parent. Maintains eye contact with parent as he slowly pushes the toy off his desk and into the garbage bin. Is complained about to Nokama for this.

Onewa: goes on a rant about how the toy helps normalize the surveillance state, and also about how it's the ugliest toy he's ever seen, and kids aren't even allowed to play with it, so what's the point? Get him an art supply store gift card instead, goddamn. Is complained about to Nokama for this.

Krahka: eagerly accepts the toy and adds it to her collection of Weird Human Garbage. Moves it to a place of honour when Onewa expresses that it's creepy.