by 
With Christmas over, Elf on a Shelf has returned to terrorising children from the sewers.
The delightful elf, which brings the fear of constant observation by an all-powerful supernatural entity to children worldwide, scampered gaily back to its home this morning after successfully destroying any chance of happy, unsupervised play its charges may have had.
Many parents tell their children that the elf will oversee their behaviour and tell Santa if they are naughty, thereby destroying the belief that Santa is a jolly and benevolent man and replacing it with an understanding of the North Pole as a totalitarian, North Korea-like state.
The elf is described as having charm that is deadly and a comfort that is fatal.
Handing out balloons capering a delightful jig, the elf skipped merrily to the storm drain where it returned to its usual home while singing “Kill you all! Try to stop me and I’ll kill you all! Drive you crazy and then kill you all! You can’t stop me!”
We asked eight-year-old Simon Williams of Kettering to tell us how much he loves the gleeful little goblin which has been silently watching and judging his every move for the last month.
Unfortunately, he didn’t stop rocking backward and forward in silent, fearful tears to tell us – but we’re sure he was very happy.
In a break between sobs, he looked up and in wide-eyed despair said, “It’s one of childhood’s great truths. Adults are the real monsters.”
