Carol Aebersold and her daughter Chanda Bell created The Elf on the Shelf in 2004 out of a family tradition, self-published it, and spent three years selling it at book signings and trade shows. It broke through in 2007 after a photograph of the box appeared on the Today show, and by 2013 it had reached number one on the USA Today bestseller list. The two objections people raise are both documented rather than invented. The first is surveillance: Professor Laura Pinto has argued that a child who grows up thinking it is fine for elves to watch and report back to Santa is being taught that it is fine to be watched and reported on generally, and The Atlantic's Kate Tuttle described the product as a marketing juggernaut dressed up as a tradition. The second is workload. By 2022 the competition on social media to stage ever more elaborate elf scenes was a documented source of parental stress, and in December 2024 the company released official activity kits explicitly to relieve that pressure.