Elf on the shelf or video camera ?

Last night well.. all the time my little "angels" have some trouble keeping their ears turned on. I thought about what I could do to remind them Santa is watching. I remembered this toy a lady at work told me about. It's called "Elf on a Shelf". If you have not heard it is apparently the one of THE toys of the Christmas season. It's about 30$ which by some is not considered a lot of money but by me it is. Anywho. This elf is a spy for Santa. You adopt him and give him a name and put him in a special spot in your house. At night when everyone is asleep he goes to the North Pole and reports back to Santa. Then he comes back home and sits in a diffrent spot. Each morning the kids are supposed to look and see where he is sitting. It's a kinda cute idea. HOWEVER. this is what the doll looks like :

Now I don't know about you but however cute the idea is if you get a freaky looking doll like that the nightmares are going to start. It looks like some evil twisted idontknowwhat and I was NOT bringing that thing into my house let alone adopt it! I like feeling secure in my home... with that i'm afraid i'd get an evil elf and he'd try to stab me in the middle of the night. Does he not look evil?!  I know, I know i'm going to hell for insulting Santa's elf. But seriously look at the look of his face!!! So anyways I talked to Big daddy about it and he was not inclined to frighten our children with thoughts of little elves sneaking in and out of the house in the middle of the night. So we came up with a cheaper idea , one that would not give the children nightmares. The Web Cam. Tim's idea was to set up the Web Cam and allow Santa or Santa's elves to peek in on the girls periodically to see how they are behaving. A SuperFab idea!! They are well familliar with how the web cam works they know Aunt Oregon can see and talk to them. It worked out great.. until bath time when my nudists decided to run through the house naked with Eldest screaming DORKS! You ran in front of Santa NAKED!!!! Mommy had to explain that the camera gets turned off when mommy says bath time!  By the way just as you know a disclaimer the WEB CAM stays unplugged so no one can hack in to it or anything. But the KIDS don't know that :)