Elf on the Shelf as people know it today started in 2005 with the self- published children’s book The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition and its accompanying scout elf doll.

Quick Scoop

  • The modern Elf craze kicked off in 2005, when Carol Aebersold and her daughter Chanda Bell released the book and elf set based on their own family tradition.
  • Their family had been doing a similar elf-visits-and-reports-to-Santa tradition since the 1970s, but it wasn’t a commercial product until the 2005 launch.
  • The brand really exploded a few years later, helped by celebrity photos and TV coverage, turning it into a widespread Christmas phenomenon in the late 2000s and 2010s.

A Bit of Background

  • The story follows a scout elf sent by Santa to watch children and report back nightly, which explains why the elf “moves” to a new spot each morning.
  • Despite many families now treating it as a long-standing classic, the commercial Elf on the Shelf tradition is only about two decades old, making it a relatively recent holiday ritual.

TL;DR: If you’re wondering “when did Elf on the Shelf start,” the answer for the official product and craze is 2005, built on a private family tradition from the 1970s.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.