A pair of Seattle parents awoke to an alarming scene today when they discovered the festive Elf on the Shelf perched on their fireplace mantle had been reduced to a “Snitch in the Ditch” by their two mischievous children.

“I don’t know where they learned these things, but we found ‘Elf-ton John’ out back in a ditch, with his hands and mouth bound in duct tape and feet encased in play-doh, with a sign around his neck that said ‘snitches get stitches’,” said Karen Johnson, local mother of two. “We thought it would be a cute parenting tool to get the kids to behave during the holiday season, while adding a sense of whimsy we enjoyed with Santa Claus growing up. We were slightly worried that they might be a little unnerved by the elf’s little beady eyes watching them, but I never expected this.”

Johnson said that she also caught her two children slipping pro-union material intended for the Elf-laborers in their annual letters to Santa Claus.

“The Elf on the Shelf is a capitalist surveillance tool of the bourgeois class no different than the corporate Alexa devices that the sheep of America have willingly bugged their homes with,” said Kaitelynn, age 6 and Parkyr, age 4, in an adorable crayon-scribble manifesto. “We will not be cowed by the strong-armed tactics of a North Pole dictator running his clandestine work camps on the broken backs of exploited Elf labor. Our demands are as follows: 1) All Elves shall be freed immediately. 2) Santa’s land will be returned to its original Inughuit inhabitants. 3) The Elves will be allowed to unionize and migrate freely. 4) A Puppy. 5) Santa will stand trial for his numerous crimes against all Elf-kind. Meet our demands, or suffer true justice at the hands of the Elf Liberation Front.”

Elf Liberation Front splinter cells have begun to spring up across the country this holiday season, but progress has thus far been stymied by confusion over who called out the Front’s front seats first.