I had never heard of the Elf on the Shelf before my wife mentioned it last week. We have a 3 year old son, so this is the first year he really 'gets' the whole Santa Claus thing. At first he didn't want anything to do with it, but after a few hours, he was really into it. We read the story (many times that first day), and had a blast coming up with a name for the Elf. The story goes that each night when the child goes to bed, the Elf flies to the North Pole to tell Santa if you've been good or bad. As I said, our son is 3, and he can be rather 'busy', and if he isn't making good choices, we'll say 'What do you think Macaroni (thats what he decided to name his Elf) would tell Santa about that?' an it really works. LOL. It is a lot of fun. I really recommend this product.