That Elf on the Shelf guy? Either love him or hate him

— Christa Pitts, understandably, is a little taken aback when I confess that I’ve dreamed about her. A mean, mean dream.

You can probably already tell this is not the kind of story suitable for little eyes, eyes that widen in wonder and delight at the sight of that demanding, loathsome little Elf.

Avert those eyes, please. Things are going to get ugly.

This is a creature whose celebrity ascent has been meteoric. Within seven years of his birth, the Elf has scored his own website, Twitter account, $16 million in sales for 2011, an annual growth rate of 149 percent and a movie deal. Plus, he conquered Manhattan as a gargantuan balloon in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Christa, a former QVC host, is one of the Elf’s creators.

“When we were growing up, there was an elf in our home. It was our Christmas tradition,” she told me from the Elf offices in Marietta, Ga.

Not familiar with this “tradition,” as the Elf ’s online CV calls it? No, neither was I.

Nor had most of America heard about the December magic that Christa and her sister, Chanda Bell, two Georgia peaches, had grown up with.

Their mother, Carol Aebersold, introduced a little elf into their lives the day after Thanksgiving. The Elf watched them all day long from a perch somewhere in their house. Like the monitoring cameras all over cities today, only cuter.

At night, he flew back to the North Pole to report on their behavior to Santa. When they woke up, he was in a different spot to spy on them.

So Mom wrote a poem about the Elf and his Big Brotherly ways. The sisters helped turn the poem into a book and a little, old-fashioned Elf doll. The Elf and his story exploded. American parents ate this up. Move over Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy. There’s another mythical creature who needs care and feeding.

My family invited the Elf into our lives three years ago. (I was desperate for some help; my boys were being monsters.) It’s a Faustian deal. First, you get this amazing disciplinary tool.My little heathens instantly turned into angels the moment I say, “The Elf is watching.” Not like the abstract “Santa is watching.”

And here’s where it goes horribly wrong. Because Americans have a really hard time keeping things simple, be it Christmas lights, sweet 16 parties, weddings or Elves.

Those exhausted-looking parents you see muttering in the hallways at work? “Three a.m. ... she wants me to move the bleep bleep elf. ... I was asleep ... the elf can eat my ....”

In the simple story that comes with the Elf, he’s gotta move every night. That means parents who forget to do it before going to bed wake up in the middle of the night, realizing they didn’t move the ... ahem! Elf.

Because if that Elf hasn’t moved in the morning, there’s hell to pay with the little ones. The jig is up.

During one of these Elf emergencies, I began having dark thoughts about Christa and the other Elf creators who had brought yet another middle-of-the-night mommy obligation into my life.

The Elf team understands and has provided help on the Elf’s website.

“Sometimes your elf will have a favorite spot, just like you might have a favorite chair or a spot on the couch. If the elf hasn’t moved, it is probably sitting in one of its favorite spots!”

The basic Elf story is work enough. But there is an entire population of overachieving parents whose Elves lead lives more exciting than Justin Bieber’s. And they have Facebook pages, blogs and Pinterest boards documenting their silly Elves’ midnight exploits, like a pillow fight (feathers all over the floor), snowball fight ( mini-marshmallowspiled all over the house, burying Barbie and Zurg), cookie-making (flour and cookie dough all over the place) or sticking 50,000 Post-it notes on the wall.

Style, Pages 33 on 12/25/2012

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