Forget about letters, numbers, walking, crawling, talking and potty training. Elf on the Shelf, an idea created by a mother-daughter team in Marietta, Georgia, has become the Next Big Mompetition. And it’s making people angry. Like angry angry. Check out this post on Babycenter titled “Elf on the shelf overachievers (can suck it).” There's an entry about “Over-achieving elf on the shelf mommies” on the blog People I Want to Punch in the Throat. Well ladies, you can add dads into the mix.

Elf on the Shelf? Please. As if. We all know that a shelf just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Elf in the Fridge.

Elf on the Ceiling Fan.

Elf Making Snow Angels in Flour.

Elf Eating Leftover Halloween Candy.

Elf on the Chandelier.

Elf Putting Underwear on the Christmas Tree.

Elf Giving Your Macbook Pro a Software Update.

Forget about letters, numbers, walking, crawling, talking and potty training. Elf on the Shelf, an idea created by a mother-daughter team in Marietta, Georgia, has become the Next Big Mompetition. And it’s making people angry. Like angry angry. Check out this post on Babycenter titled “Elf on the shelf overachievers (can suck it).” There's an entry about “Over-achieving elf on the shelf mommies” on the blog People I Want to Punch in the Throat.

In the early days of December, it's all about funky, creative, out-of-the-box elf placement. ("Look, kids! The elf has been baked into a bundt cake!") But then three weeks pass, and you start running out of ideas. That's when shelves and anything resembling a shelf passes muster. (The book should have been called The Elf on Any Elevated Flat Surface, but that title doesn't have the same zing.) For the first few weeks of December, my wife Brandy and I teamed up on ideas on where to put Rocky the elf. But for the last week or so, she’s handed duties over to me, claiming elf-haustion. It's Christmas crunch time, and I’m the Kobe Bryant of elf placement.

And when it counted most, I came up big. I’m so proud of my ideas that I thought I’d share some of them here:

Rocky enjoys a North Pole Jacuzzi. When the day was over, we smashed him in the sink to clear away the ice, then tossed him in the dryer.

 

Rocky kicks it in a marshmallow Barcalounger. It took me nine toothpicks (and one bleeding thumb) to finish it.

B. Elf. T

 

Rocky makes some fresh OJ. I was really out of ideas when I noticed Brandy had picked up some tangerines at the grocery store. Booyah.

 

Maybe one of these ideas helps get you through the next couple days. Maybe we can turn this mompetition into a collective effort to share ideas. Together, maybe we can be more than the sum of our small, stuffed, red felt parts.