If Christa Pitts doesn’t RSVP to your holiday party on time, cut her some slack. The co-founder of The Lumistella Company, which 20 years ago introduced The Elf on the Shelf — by way of Santa Claus, of course — is especially busy this time of year.
Pitts and her twin sister, Chanda A. Bell split the CEO role at Lumistella, a family-owned company Pitts unironically calls “the southern branch of the North Pole.” At the moment, they’re busy balancing an expanding Netflix slate with your kids’ many, many questions about Scout Elves. (“Does my Elf have pets? Does my Elf have family members? What do they eat? Where do they live?”)
There are currently four Elf on the Shelf Netflix specials with more on the way. In a holly, jolly Zoom session with The Hollywood Reporter, Pitts teased a recent visit to Netflix HQ, where it sure sounds like the first feature-length streaming Elf on the Shelf movie is in the works. (Pitts’ favorite Christmas movies: Elf, of course, as well as It’s a Wonderful Life and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Same, TBH.)
Elf on the Shelf video production isn’t just going long, it’s also going especially short: Lumistella’s signature Scout Elves, like the one currently sitting on your shelf (or somewhere more creative, hopefully), are also now on YouTube Kids in seven-minute increments via preschool series Scout Elf Squad.
And we haven’t even really mentioned yet the consumer goods piece of the business, which takes up much more of the mince pie. As it turns out, the Scout Elves do have family members — like the new Frost Pips babies — and a sleigh-full of pets. (The most popular is Norah, Santa’s Magical Arctic Fox, who created the Northern Lights and can stop time.)
Yes, the holiday season is a lot for Pitts & co., but much like Santa and his builder elves, it takes the full 12 months for Lumistella to deliver Christmastime joy.
“It takes all year — every single second that you have in the year leading up to the Christmas season — to plan for Santa’s delivery,” Pitts says.
There’s social media to (very carefully) curate (“Kids can see that material as much as their parents,” she says), a supply chain to manage, the creation of new product, live events like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and video production, now including a Christmas Eve-release short film in collaboration with the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs. You read that correctly.
Merry Mischief is a claymation short following an Elf on the Shelf a “Kelce on the Shelfie” (kill me now), who finds himself “home alone” at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium while the team is away. Hopefully, the little guy makes it to the team’s primetime Christmas Day game (also streaming on Netflix!) vs. the Denver Broncos. Look, I’m a fan of The Elf on the Shelf (ours is “Ra-Ra”) and Pitts is an absolute delight to speak with, but this may be the cringiest thing the Chiefs have done since, well, playing in the last Super Bowl. (Zing!)
Whatever, it’s for the kids. Watch the trailer:
To-date, Lumistella Santa has delivered more than 31 million Scout Elfs, Elf Pets and Elf Mates to families in 29 countries. Pitts estimates the company has only reached about half its market potential — and the whole thing started with a self-published poem, one that “absolutely no [publisher] wanted,” per Pitts.
More accurately, this whole thing began two generations prior with a frustrated mother (of Pitts’ mother), as so many great inventions have.
“My mom and my uncle must have been roughing around as as young kids do,” Pitts said. “And [my grandmother] said — and [the elf] was just in the Christmas tree — but she said, ‘You know that Elf works for Santa. You guys better cut it out, because the elf will let him know what you’re up to.’”
Things went from Naughty to Nice real quick, and a Christmas tradition was born.
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