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Mum accidentally melts face off Elf on the Shelf with simple mistake
She had to wait two years before her husband let her post it online
If you've been anywhere near the internet in December, you'll know that elf on the shelf is taking the world by storm.
The popular toy is used by parents to keep their kids' behaviour in check in December - often resulting in hilarious scenes.
This is because the premise of the elf is that it goes back to the North Pole every night to tell Santa how a child has been behaving.
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When the elf returns the next morning, anything could have happened, and a lot of parents have fun creating crazy scenarios for their children's elves, who 'enjoy' staging pranks.
But for one mum, this went hilariously wrong and the face was burnt off her son's elf on the shelf.
Max Oliver, 27, explained that the elf's face was 'cremated' shortly after she introduced the toy to her son, Charlie, who was five at the time.
In hilarious footage of the incident, the mum can be seen laughing hysterically as she approaches her son's elf after it was attached to a light.
It soon becomes apparent that the toy is actually stuck to the lightbulb, and when it's removed, the full horror of what's happened becomes apparent.
Max, who is from Cornwall, said she had asked her partner to set up the elf prank before bed, but the pair were soon woken by the smell of burning plastic.
"On this particular day I said 'I forgot to move the elf - can you move it for me?' He said he'd got just the place," she remembered.
"He went and hid it and we thought nothing of it. Fifteen minutes went by and he came rushing upstairs saying 'something's on fire, I can smell smoke'.
"We were going around the house sniffing every plug socket in the house which was quite funny.
"It wasn't until I got downstairs in the front room and bent down to smell the plug socket.
"I looked up and saw these little legs dangling from the light bulb."
Max said: "I instantly knew it was the elf that had melted but I didn't know it'd be melted that badly.
"The light bulb was actually off as well so it was just the fact it'd been on all day and it was the heat from it.
"Because the light was switched off, he didn't realise it was hot. The elf has little arms with velcro so he'd velcroed it around the light bulb.
"It was about two weeks before Christmas, we thought we couldn't show him it as it'd scar him for life.
"We hid it under the sink and wrote a note from the elf to say 'I had to help Santa in the toy shop - I'll be back in a couple of days'."
Unfortunately for Max, she was unable to get a replacement elf easily because the toys are so popular, but eventually managed to get one in The Range.
She explained that this elf was the last one available and looked a bit worse for wear, but her son didn't notice.
"The new elf has survived the last couple of years and there's been no more mishaps since then," she said.
The mum went on to reveal that Charlie's stepdad was so embarrassed by what happened to the elf that he made her wait two years before giving her permission to post the fail online.
Max said: "My partner didn't see the funny side straight away because he was worried it might have been a fire and said I couldn't post it [online].
"I asked him to post it this year as it's Christmas and he agreed.
"We still have the elf under the sink. It's stayed under there.
"I'm putting it in a memory box and we'll keep it in the house forever now."
Topics: Christmas
Emma Guinness