I pinch myself when I think how our family tradition has become such a phenomenon
It has been the biggest Christmas craze of the past few years. Here CHANDA BELL reveals her heartwarming family story behind Elf On The Shelf
WHEN I say we didn’t have two pennies to rub together, that would be generous. We were broke.
The family business, a small steel fabrication company, wasn’t doing well, and it was having a knock-on effect on us all.
A couple of days a week, I’d leave my husband at home and drive the two-hour trip to my parents’ house in Atlanta, Georgia, to help my dad with the business.
That way, I could take my three-year-old son Taylor to work with me, and stay the night with them to spend some time with my mum.
She was living in a perfect storm of problems: worried about money and the family business, and also
recovering from health problems.
One night as I cast about for an idea to cheer Mum up, I caught sight of our family elf sitting high on a shelf. Christmas had always been a big deal in our house, and Mum went the extra mile to make sure it was special for us.
Fisbee the elf sat on the shelf, keeping watch over me and my siblings, and each night Mum told us he’d fly back to the North Pole and tell Santa whether we’d been naughty or nice. In the morning, he’d return but he’d always land in a different spot in the house.
Running around the house trying to find Fisbee was honestly the most exciting part of the holidays.
“Mum, we should write a children’s book about Fisbee together,” I told her, and she loved the idea. Neither of us had ever done anything like it before – she worked in advertising
before becoming a home-maker, and I’d been an English teacher at a middle school.
At first it was just a fun way to spend an evening together.
GETTING CREATIVE
ONE night a week for about six months, I’d rush home from working with Dad, put Taylor down to sleep, and Mum and I would sit together at the kitchen table or curled up on the couch. It was a lot of fun toying with rhyme and rhythm pattern, exploring the best way to get our family tradition down on paper.
Once we’d finished, we both realised we were onto something pretty special that we wanted to share with the world. But we were clueless about what to do next, so we bought a book about how to get published, wrote a proposal and sent a few manuscripts out.
A day and a half later, we got a call from an agent who said she loved ‘Elf On The Shelf’ and wanted to take us on. We were ecstatic, and really thought we’d made it. But it wasn’t to be. The agent took our story to just about every publisher, big and small, over seven months and nobody wanted to publish it.
Mum and I felt a little dejected, but we still felt so sure we needed to carry on, so much so, we decided to go down the
self-publishing route.
It was crazy gambling so much on an elf, but I just knew it was the right thing to do.
We had no money, and we didn’t even know anyone with money. We maxed out our credit cards and my parents tapped into their retirement savings to set up our own publishing business.
My twin sister Christa was involved by this point too, and she sold her house in Pennsylvania and moved back home with my parents so she could put the proceeds into the business.
It was a huge leap of faith for our whole family – there was no way, on our meagre salaries, we could pay back the debts we racked up to produce our first 5,000 copies.
Slowly but surely, the Elf On The Shelf boxset, which contained the book and a small elf, began to sell, mainly at school fairs and gift shows.
For three years, none of us took a salary.
STAR POWER
THEN, one day, completely out of the blue, my sister called me up with news that would change all of our lives.
Hollywood star Jennifer Garner had been photographed walking down the streets of New York with a copy of Elf On The Shelf in her hand.
Honestly, it couldn’t have worked out any better if we’d tried – even the way she was holding it seemed to show the cover perfectly to the paparazzi.
I have no idea where she got a copy, and I’ve never had the chance to thank her, but if I ever meet her, believe me, I will.
The phones rang off the hook and we had a sudden surge in traffic to our site, as people wanted to know all about the book. Overnight, we went from a small family business to a phenomenon.
Fourteen years later, Elf On The Shelf has sold 12 million copies in the USA, UK, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and Mexico.
We’ve written spin-off books, made a film, and this Christmas we release a second movie, Elf Pets: Santa’s St Bernard’s Save Christmas.
I still pinch myself when I think about how our family tradition’s become a worldwide tradition, and I always smile when I see pictures of the complicated set-ups parents have put their elves in.
It’s so nice that we’ve spread so much magic around the world.
Taylor and my daughter Kendyl, now 17 and 12, love being part of the Elf On The Shelf family.
Whenever any of their new friends find out what we do, there’s a new thrill of excitement.
Looking back, I believe that nothing happened by chance – there was a reason Mum was in a bad place and there was a reason I was able to work for my dad and be there for her.
You have to have faith these bad times are meant to be, and trust your instincts about what you’re supposed to be doing with your life.
Lots of people have good ideas, but if you don’t act on them, they’ll never be more than ideas.
As told to Rosie Hopegood.
Elf Pets: Santa’s St Bernards Save Christmas is out now on DVD and digital download.