Elf On A Shelf Is The New Holiday Craze

It's the Christmas tradition that's sparked $10 million in sales and yet another task for already harried parents getting ready for the holidays. My daughter was going to fight it with the grand kids, but peer pressure took over. 

OK, it started as a book. The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition is a children's book, written by Carol Aebersold and her daughter Chanda Bell. Self-published in 2005, the book tells the story of a group of Santa's elves who hide out in houses around the country to watch children and decide if they are naughty or nice. Quickly, the Elf became an extension of the Santa Claus Christmas fable. In 2008, it also won the Book of the Year award from Creative Child Awards.

Now this is as crazy as Beanie Babies, Pokemon and others of the past.

The book says that at night, the elf flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa on the behavior of children before returning to homes to hide for the day. Thus, the elf is playing a game of hide-and-seek with children, who look for the different spot the tiny being moves to each day.

The book only sets up one rule that children must follow, so that the elf can do its job: "Please do not touch me. My magic might go, and Santa won't hear all I've seen or I know." After Christmas is over, the elf flies back to the North Pole, presumably to spend time with Santa, until Thanksgiving the next year. Nobody ever asks why the most efficient delivery system for this Santa surveillance racket is in major department stores, or why the elves just started showing up in 2005, but there you go.