5 Minutes with "The Elf on the Shelf" author Carol Aebersold

Grandparents.com

The book has become a Christmas classic, but it wasn’t an overnight success. 

The Elf on the Shelf, the book with a magical creature who watches children all day then flies back to the North Pole and reports to Santa every night, is a hot item—2.4 million of them have sold in North America alone.   But just eight years ago every major publisher gave The Elf on the Shelf the thumbs down.   I talked with co-author and grandmother Carol Aebersold about the long, hard process of keeping faith and believing in a dream when the world is shouting at you to give up. 

Q: I understand that the elf was a Christmas tradition in your house when you were growing up and that you continued this tradition with your own three children. What made you decide to share this story with the world?

Carol: I was going through a really hard time. I felt like I had nothing left to do in life. My kids were grown and gone, I had three herniated disks in my back and the pain was draining. My husband had an employee who embezzled money and who was also a trusted friend.  I felt betrayed. I felt like “What’s next? Is there anything next?” I was sharing all this with Chanda, who encouraged me to get some professional help and I did. And that helped immensely. But she also said, “Mom, you should write a book about the elf.” So I did that, too.

Q: What it difficult putting this story down on paper?

Carol: The first couple of lines came instantly. After that we worked on it together. (Chanda is co-author)  Being a music person, I wanted the rhyme and the rhythm to be just so and Chanda, being English teacher, wanted appropriate words.    

Q: And when the writing was finished?

Carol: We chose 10 agents from a book who would accept unsolicited manuscripts. And within a day and a half we heard back from one. She loved it and took it to every publishing house she could, but they all said, “Well this sounds like a nice thing but...” She encouraged us. She said, “I am never wrong. This is going to be a success. You need to self publish.” So we did.  

Q:  What was that like?
Carol: It was a long hard process. Chanda got on the Internet and learned all she could. Because of her job, Christa knew all about sales. We put our heads and our money together and we all worked hard.   

Q:  So this was a family affair?

Carol: Yes. Our office was a little corner in my husband’s warehouse. We shared one desk and one phone and one computer and Chanda had a baby and one of us would answer the phone, one would write down the order and one would pass the baby around. When one of us got down, the others would say we have no choice: Christa and Brian had sold their home and moved in with us. My husband and I had cashed in our savings. Chanda had maxed out her credit cards. We had to make this work. We were all going to sink or swim together.   

Q: What was the biggest hurdle?

Carol: Funding. Banks are not willing to loan money for elves. The three of us worked for 3 1/2 years without getting a paycheck.

Q: What’s been the biggest surprise?

Carol: That America has embraced our story and now it’s going international.   

Q: And the biggest thrill?

Carol: When I saw our balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Q: You have said that your goal was to create memorable family moments. What do you mean by this?

Carol: A family moment is when a child sits in your lap and you both read the book.  When a child give the elf a name, when you go on the website (www.elfontheshelf.com) and make a cookie for Santa or play one of the elf’s games. When, every morning, a child looks to see where the elf is now.

Q:  Earlier you talked about depression. Would you like to say something more about this.

Carol: I remember when I was in my deepest pain, I would hold on to three sayings. One was from an old wise African America speaker.  “When God shuts one door he opens another,” and I thought, yah I’ve heard that before. But then he said,  “But it’s hell while you’re in the hallway.”   I was in the hallway. And when you’re in the hallway you just have to keep moving. If you need professional help, don’t be ashamed to get it. One out every three women over 50 is on anti-depressants. It probably should be two out of every three. I was so sick of concentrating on me. We get to choose what we think about and it helps to be thinking about other things.

She thought about The Elf on the Shelf. And this magical elf who charms children, worked his magic on her, too.