The premise of the phenomenon that is The Elf on the Shelf is that one of Santa’s Scout Elves keeps an eye on the children during the run-up to Christmas and reports back to the North Pole.

Every night once the kids are asleep, parents set up a cheeky tableau for their little nippers to discover the following morning and it turns out, the mums and dads really get into it, even more so than the kids.

Twenty-five long days of creative torture for mums and dads across the globe but for us at...