Elf on the Shelf is often sold as harmless holiday magic, but the story behind it can feel oddly unsettling once you spell it out. A tiny visitor arrives in your home, watches everything, then reports back to Santa. In any other setting, that sounds like the plot of a low-budget thriller, not a December tradition. Yet for many families, it is packaged as a cute way to keep kids excited and cooperative.
In their Portola Pilot piece, Sonia Wang and Aditi Salunkhe argue that the tradition can normalize constant monitoring for children who are still learning how the world works. They trace it back to the book The Elf on the Shelf A Christmas Tradition by Carol V. Aebersold and Bell Chanda, where the elf’s job is to tell Santa about both good and bad behavior. Over time, the modern version became a daily game, with parents moving the elf around the house as proof that it is always watching. The authors also note how this fits neatly into the larger Santa mythology, including the famous song “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie.
That is where the discomfort can creep in, because the message is not just that Santa knows everything, but that surveillance is part of being good. The article references the New York Times for concerns about how this kind of near-constant watchfulness can land on young kids. If a child believes the elf is truly magical, the idea of being observed all day can feel less like play and more like pressure. When the focus becomes avoiding punishment or earning approval, it can overshadow the deeper point of the season.
Sophomore Tristan Kim captures that uneasy feeling in a blunt, kid-honest way. He recalls going to a friend’s house where the elf was treated as real, and he describes how frightening it felt to imagine a little figure tracking every move. His perspective highlights the gap between adult intention and childhood imagination. What parents may see as a silly tool for behavior, children may experience as an inescapable set of eyes.
Wang and Salunkhe suggest a gentler switch that keeps the fun while changing the message, a “Kindness Elf.” The hide-and-seek routine stays the same, but instead of reporting wrongdoing, the elf brings a note with a simple kind act to try. Those tasks can be small, like complimenting someone, or bigger, like donating clothes. Dance teacher and parent Samantha Gardner says her family introduced their elf as a visitor looking for moments of love and kindness, and she admits many modern parents are reconsidering traditions like this and even opting out.
If your family does Elf on the Shelf, would you keep it, tweak it into a kindness tradition, or skip it altogether this year? Share your thoughts in the comments.
