--- title: This Dad Turned His 4-Month-Old Son Into an Elf on the Shelf description: People have been coming up with more and more creative variations of the "Elf on the Shelf" tradition canonical: https://time.com/4153418/elf-on-the-shelf-dad-4-month-old/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-17T18:31:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:50.208Z og:title: This Dad Turned His 4-Month-Old Son Into the Cutest 'Elf on the Shelf' og:description: "We woke up this morning to find an elf in our family room" og:url: https://time.com/4153418/elf-on-the-shelf-dad-4-month-old/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Dad Turned His 4-Month-Old Son Into the Cutest 'Elf on the Shelf' twitter:description: "We woke up this morning to find an elf in our family room" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Dad Turned His 4-Month-Old Son Into the Cutest 'Elf on the Shelf' > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Here Is an Adorable Compilation of Kids Reacting to Opening Christmas Presents [Watch (HLS stream): Here Is an Adorable Compilation of Kids Reacting to Opening Christmas Presents](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bphe0Q3F.m3u8) (1:19)  _Published 2013-12-20. From jubilant exclamations — "Santa knowed what I wanted for Christmas!" — to earsplitting shrieks, here are some of our favorite reactions._  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Dec 17, 2015 6:31 PM UTC  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Dec 17, 2015 6:31 PM UTC People have been coming up with more and more creative — and [terrifying](http://www.people.com/article/dad-becomes-elf-on-shelf) — variations of the now inescapable “Elf on the Shelf” tradition this [holiday season](http://time.com/4150478/christmas-mall-santas/). Utah dad Alan Lawrence, who runs [That Dad Blog](http://thatdadblog.com/2015/12/15/the-elf-that-came-to-live-with-us/), decided to join the fun by transforming his four-month-old son Rockwell into a [real-life elf](http://time.com/4152052/holderness-new-christmas-jammies-video/). “All of our friends do the Elf on the Shelf and I’ve always thought it was sort of creepy, but sort of fun — this idea of an elf coming to live in your home and moving around to different places,” Lawrence told [TODAY](http://www.today.com/parents/dad-turns-his-4-month-old-son-adorable-elf-shelf-t62156). “And I’m like, what if it was a real elf? And of course, being parents, we already have the cutest little 4-month-old. So we decided to make a fun series.” The pictures show Rockwell up to various [holiday hijinks](http://time.com/4144983/billy-on-the-street-will-ferrell-christmas/) and have been posted daily on Lawrence’s blog and [Instagram account](https://www.instagram.com/thatdadblog/). Lawrence said he plans to keep adding new photos until Christmas Day. “We woke up this morning to find an elf in our family room. Our neighbors seem to think he is part of the ‘Elf On The Shelf’ program but we are still not sure,” Lawrence wrote for the first picture. So far, Rockwell has been spotted satisfying his sweet tooth… Shoving cookies into the VCR… And teepeeing the Christmas tree. Lawrence said the feedback he’s been getting is “overwhelmingly positive.” “It’s funny because I thought, I’m sure someone has done this before,” he said. “But everyone is responding and mentioning a friend to say, ‘Hey, you should do this with Sally!’ or talking about doing it with their own kids.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4153418/elf-on-the-shelf-dad-4-month-old/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4153418/elf-on-the-shelf-dad-4-month-old/"},"headline":"This Dad Turned His 4-Month-Old Son Into the Cutest 'Elf on the Shelf'","datePublished":"2015-12-17T18:31:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:47:50.208Z","description":"\"We woke up this morning to find an elf in our family room\"","url":"https://time.com/4153418/elf-on-the-shelf-dad-4-month-old/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Babies","viral","christmas","baby","Holidays","Dad","holiday season"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4153418/elf-on-the-shelf-dad-4-month-old/","name":"This Dad Turned His 4-Month-Old Son Into the Cutest 'Elf on the Shelf'"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Here Is an Adorable Compilation of Kids Reacting to Opening Christmas Presents","description":"From jubilant exclamations — \"Santa knowed what I wanted for Christmas!\" — to earsplitting shrieks, here are some of our favorite reactions.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bphe0Q3F/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2013-12-20T15:53:36.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bphe0Q3F.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4153418/elf-on-the-shelf-dad-4-month-old/","duration":"PT1M19S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4153418/elf-on-the-shelf-dad-4-month-old/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```