When I was little, just thinking about Santa watching me during the month of December (“He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake.”) was enough to make me talk a little nicer, share a little more, and make sure I wasn’t caught doing anything really bad. These days, Moms everywhere have raised the bar with their little ones with a little guy named Elf on a Shelf. 
From the official Elf on a Shelf website…”Every year at Christmas Santa sends his elves to watch you and they go back and tell him who’s been bad and who’s been good!” The site is filled with videos on Elf Training Camp, actual video of an elf caught flying and the Elf Story movie trailer. There is also a login to register your elf and make a scrapbook of their activities through the season!
The real fun begins when parents get into spinning the tale…and let me tell you there are some parents out there working it! After their children are in bed those elves get busy…playing games, eating cookies, messing up the kitchen, moving clothes from one closet to another…I’m not kidding. There are blogs and Facebook pages dedicated to ideas for your elf to try and Pinterest is filled with pictures of elves in action! It seems the more active the elf is the faster your children will get out of bed in the morning to see what he/she has been up to!
Elves are not free and have been sold out of some retailers this year. If you’re one of the one who picked one up at Target you paid $30 for the book and doll. Choices include blue eyed or brown eyed elves and accessories include a couture Christmas skirt if your elf wants to be a girl!
The story and concept were written by a mother-daughter team from Georgia whose ideas were rejected many times by all the major publishers. They decided to publish on their own and produced 300 in the first run of 2005. They have sold 1.5 million to date. Critics think the elf is a little creepy and is really just a “tattle tale.” Others think it’s a little crazy that parents are making HUGE messes for themselves to clean up after the initial 5 seconds of excitement their child receives.
Rhea Lana Facebook fans posted some fun comments on our blog this week including my favorite from a couple WITHOUT CHILDREN who posted, “Me and my husband have fun hiding JJ our elf from each other. Our first baby is on the way.”
Other comments: from Amanda, ”We named ours Sam Winkle, aka Mr Winkle. The kids wake up super excited each day to find where he is. Today he was hanging out in my k-cup basket, he had been eating on my homemade chocolate chip cookies.”
Katie says, “We have “peanut”. My 4 and 3 year old girls race to see who can find him first every morning and they also tell him when they do good things so he can tell Santa!!”
A sign of the times…Elf on a Shelf spent time in the number one spot on Barnes and Nobel’s website. Will your family adopt one?
