THE ELF ON THE SHELF: AN ELF’S STORY follows one of the many scout elves from the North Pole who helps Santa Claus determine who to put on the naughty and nice lists. Named “Chippey” by his adoptive family, the elf is assigned to help a young boy, Taylor McTuttle, who struggles to believe in the magic of Christmas.

The Elf on the Shelf is a popular children’s storybook created by Carol Aebersold and her daughters, Chanda Bell and Christa Pitts, who self-published the book through their company CCA and B. The story was inspired by an Aebersold family tradition featuring their own pixie elf, Fisbee, who appeared in their home every holiday season. Since 2005, The Elf on the Shelf has sold nearly two million copies.

When hoops&yoyo – and their little friend, piddles – wait up on Christmas Eve to catch a glimpse of Santa, their curiosity lands them in his sleigh shortly after he goes down their chimney. Unable to exit the sleigh before takeoff without being spotted by Santa, they soon find themselves caught in the time-space continuum that allows him to travel the world in one night.

When turbulence jostles the trio from the sleigh, they fall through a wormhole and end up going back in time with a young Kris Kringle. After realizing they have disrupted Kris’s journey to fulfilling his destiny, hoops&yoyo and piddles race to set things right so the world will have its Santa Claus.

Out in the woods stood a nice little Fir-tree. The place he had was a very good one; the sun shone on him; as to fresh air, there was enough of that, and round him grew many large-sized comrades, pines as well as firs. But the little Fir wanted so very much to be a grown-up tree.

He did not think of the warm sun and of the fresh air; he did not care for the little cottage children that ran about and prattled when they were in the woods looking for wild strawberries. The children often came with a whole pitcher full of berries, or a long row of them threaded on a straw, and sat down near the young tree and said, “Oh, how pretty he is! what a nice little fir!” But this was what the Tree could not bear to hear.

At the end of a year he had shot up a good deal, and after another year he was another long bit taller; for with fir-trees one can always tell by the shoots how many years old they are.

“Oh, were I but such a high tree as the others are!” sighed he. “Then I should be able to spread out my branches, and with the tops to look into the wide world! Then would the birds build nests among my branches; and when there was a breeze, I could bend with as much stateliness as the others!”

Neither the sunbeams, nor the birds, nor the red clouds, which morning and evening sailed above them, gave the little Tree any pleasure.

In winter, when the snow lay glittering on the ground, a hare would often come leaping along, and jump right over the little Tree. Oh, that made him so angry! But two winters were past, and in the third the tree was so large that the hare was obliged to go round it. “To grow and grow, to get older and be tall,” thought the Tree–”that, after all, is the most delightful thing in the world!”