Full disclosure: we have two. We got them because we thought it had the makings of a cute tradition (when we were actively cultivating tradition because both me and my wife have peril-fraught holiday backgrounds) but we got two because we thought the extant legend was creepy AF.
Our elves (a boy and a girl) definitely appear in different places every night. They play with my daughter's stuff. They showed up when she was two, I think, and she was informed that they work for santa - no naughty/nice/ratting-out verbiage was added. She's turned them into houseguests, effectively - she writes them notes, she gets them cookies and candy, and occasionally they ask for her to make art projects or roast marshmallows for them. What we've ended up with, really, is a pair of convivial brownies that show up for an extended visit when we get a Christmas tree.
But I definitely see the objections.
From the linked Atlantic article:
- But what if you already have an Elf? And there are things about it you kind of like? "We got ours as a gift," a friend of mine in Philadelphia says. "It's fun—a little extra Christmas magic every day. I don't do crazy things with it—just move it around. I named him Kurt Hummel because he looks like the kid from Glee." To me, this is the best of all possible uses for an Elf or any other Christmas talisman—as something a bit magical, mostly because it's rare and usually boxed away. Holidays can be magical, but magic can't be forced. When I was little, we had a little carved wooden music box that played "Silent Night" while a Father Christmas character and a tree rotated in ever-slowing circles. It was special because it meant Christmas to us—but it was also mysterious, partly because we never saw anything like it at K-Mart, and because it seemed unique to our family. Because nobody ever told us a story about it, we got to make up our own.
An object that disappears and reappears is wonderfully fun—but it doesn't have to be something from a store or someone else's imagination, much less a committee's. If you have an Elf, make up your own story about what he's doing in your house—the weirder the better. Do not like him on Facebook. Do not use him to bully your child into thinking that good behavior equals gifts—if Christmas means anything religious to you at all, isn't it that goodness is its own gift?