Sorry, can't seem to post the picture. It was a little elf sitting on the rim of the toilet going to the bathroom showing peppermints in the toilet bowl. People are just so creative. They probably made millions with the little elf ... why couldn't I have thought of it Haha!

I'm not fond of the little elf. Kids thinks Santa up at the North Pool knows what their doing. Now, there is a little elf in your house watching your every move. Then there is the Santa cams. Talking about making a kid paranoid.

Here's one such pic.

Ya it's actually old news now. The kids who first got caught up in this commercial offering are graduated from college.

Not a very clever idea unless you want to risk having a drain clog. Is this something that was clandestinely put out by RotoRooter or some other plumbing organization?

Yeah, darn. Why can't someone do something about that? Maybe we can combine a fix with federal vouchers for religious schools paid for by somehow jiggering federal student loan rules? I imagine that if you know who flushes the toilet that many times per use, it's because it's just one more item on the long list of things in the world that he doesn't understand at all.

Awe, I thought it was really cute and would get the kids giggling. This seriously is the first time I noticed it. Could be because I come from a pretty remote place in Canada and I don't really surf the web or pinterest much. We have very few big stores so perhaps that's why?

Is that chocolate on one of the mints? If so, that's totally unnecessary and gross.

I think it's just the hole where the water goes down. And those peppermints are going to dissolve quickly in water. No roto-rooter would be necessary.

If your toilet clogs because of two

small peppermint candies, you need a new toilet or a new drain line.

You guys do know the toilet is not the dirtiest germ ridden thing in your bathroom right? I wasn't suggesting the elf remain there forever. Enough said ... Sigh .

Sewage lines can be partially obstructed and pieces of candy might be enough to make it worse and get other things caught. Especially in older homes with smaller pipes.

There's normally no standing water in drainpipes, except in traps, to cause hard candy to dissolve. Toilet outflow goes directly into the line, there's no trap structure in the pipes for it to pass through. If pieces of candy got hung up on an obstruction, it would dissolve a bit as water passes but it would be dry otherwise.

Feel free to flush hard candy down your toilets along with anything else you think is okay.

My youngest learned about Elf on a Shelf from her friends and begged for one too so we got one. They can be a lot of fun. Ours was always being naughty and sassy and getting into stuff. Him and Barbie had a fling too. One of the coolest things he did was bring back donuts from a party he had attended up at the North Pole. The donuts were still cold. He snuck in on a family trip too. I carried him around in my purse so he could see the sights.

Ladydi, I think it's very cute! Forget those fuddyduddies.

By the time that elf figured out how to flush, those candies would be totally dissolved in the bowl. To think they'd plug a toilet is laughable. Sheesh.

I thought it was really cute and forwarded it to my daughter-in-law for an idea for their elf.

I told my daughter about it also. She thought it was a cute idea and going to use it. Yesterday her elf opened the toothpaste, spilled some and wrote a message inside the sink "be good ".

Have you seen This dad’s blog of a real live elf?

bpath, that's the cutest thing ever! Thanks for posting it, maybe it will help loosen up some of the fuddy duddies here.

Rusty

Indeed. Seating a wobbly toddler on a narrow mantle is really cute, along with the other stupid places that baby was put to take a photo. It's almost as cute as passing a grandchild through an 11th floor window on a cruise ship. One a horrendous tragedy and the others potential problems less dramatic but possibly also with a regrettable outcomes. But worthwhile risks to take.

(Some people have no brains. Sorry)

That's cute! If it were me, I'd wait to do that until right after the toilet had been cleaned though. It reminds me of when people were putting mini marshmallows in a baggy, tying it up with Christmas ribbon and calling it snowman poop.

For those who need an elf prank, when I worked at the school, I used to sprinkle green glitter around here and there in odd places and then told the kids it was leprechaun dust. The little ones were convinced their school had been visited with leprechauns. In this case, red glitter could be used and called elf dust. Just keep in mind that glitter sticks around for along time no matter how much one vacuums. The custodian used to get slightly annoyed with me, but he never stayed mad for long!

bpath, that blog is the cutest thing EVER! Thanks for posting it.

Elmer if you read the blog, it's all photoshopped.

Fine. Danger averted but it makes me uncomfortable to look at. Seem okay to you?

Elmer, because it is photoshopped, and done well, yes, it’s funny, and the captions are, too. Cute as can be. (I mean, really, like a guy could get a 9-month-old or whatever to sit still on a shower rod or not spill the pancake syrup...)

Sorry. I spent too many years wary and cautious of too many dangers for too many kids in too many situations to find those photos cute. Like them if you want, they're disturbing to me. And stupid.

Thanks guys. I was starting to wonder if I just had a very bad sense of humor.

Personally? I despise the elf on the shelf. My kids know about it because all of their elementary teachers have had one in the classroom.

Of course I'm the sort of "negative Nancy" that also doesn't do Santa or any other mystical creatures.

My kids and I somehow got on the topic of the elf today in fact, and I mentioned to them that the "elf" didn't even exist when I was a kid, it's only been around for 10-15 years.

Commercialism at its best.

Some of my closest friends go all out with the elf thing and/or the santa thing but for me? It's just never sat well with me.

I've strived to raise my kids with a healthy amount of skepticism, mostly so they won't be duped by whatever fantasy fairy tale BS is fed to them by society, religious groups, political extremists, etc.

I've always believed it wasn't my job to teach my children WHAT to think, but rather my job to teach them HOW to think.

Pretending that fantasy and mysticism are real just seems confusing to me, so I've never done it.

I'm sure this marks me as a fuddy duddy who is spoiling the season for others, though that is NOT my intent.

I always thought the elf thing was a little weird,BUT 3 of my siblings have the elf on the shelf for their kids, and it is amusing to see how excited the little ones get to go find him and see what kind of mischief he's been into overnight.

Ladydi, my sister used that scenario one year although she used red and green jellybeans not peppermints. I still have the video of her older twins (7 or so at the time,they are 14 now) trying to tell WHAT that naughty elf had been up too. They were laughing so hard it took several minutes for them to tell that the elf had pooped and had NOT FLUSHED!!! That naughty elf..... It was so fun to see how much they enjoyed it.

It is such a magical time for the little ones. It is nice to see.

I am not a fuddy-duddy but I am not fond of the elf on a shelf. It is seemingly an elf spying on children in their own home? I don't find that entertaining.

But I am not the parent of a small child anymore so I just take it in stride.