Parents across America are frantically googling ideas regarding what malarkey their small Elf on the Shelf might incur upon their homes each morning. While Sparky Elf abducts a doe-eyed neighbor “Barbie” (aka Barbara Millicent Roberts) and holds her hostage with his personal GI Joe militia, their tots lie quietly in their beds with sugar plum fairies (incidentally who are Spark’s distant cousins) dancing in their heads. Meanwhile, down the street, Twinkles Elf is found head first in the Jones’s cookie jar with chocolate smeared from elfin ear-to-ear, face adorned with that sly smile only attainable by Santa’s spy squad.

Heralding in the holiday season, Tinsel Elf simply appears one morning upon the top of Thomas the Train Engine or upon the back of Rex (Disney/Pixar’s beloved Tyrannosaurus) ready to scare Johnny and Suzy into extrinsically-driven angelic behavior with hopes of Father Christmas leaving a treasure trove on Christmas morning. Unbeknownst to the tots, Mom and Dad have been hard at work keeping the secret truth about both the obese man in the red velveteen suit from the Belle Vernon Walmart as well as our tiny friends under [gift] wraps. The understood “Catch 22” of Trixie’s power is that if the mitts of a child should contact her, she is excommunicated from the pearly gates of the blustery North Pole…no more to report back each night to jolly ole Saint Nicholas.

Then as quickly as the Elfin spy squad made their appearance known, the fat man shows up bearing gifts and they disappear back into the Arctic Circle where they will spend the next 46 weeks at an all-inclusive resort with their dearest friends the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy.