A family in Kansas is issuing a warning to other parents who partake in the Elf on the Shelf holiday tradition to be careful where they place their elf’s, after they accidently burned theirs’s alive.

Chelsea Hightower of Overland Park shared her story on Facebook on December 11th.

The post reports that one day after spending the day in the fridge, her elves, Jingle, Bell, and Magic, decided to warm themselves up by sitting in the family’s oven.

Chelsea says she went out to do some Christmas shopping and left the kids home with their father.

At some point, Mr. Hightower turned on the stove not realizing that the elves were inside.

The oldest of the three children noticed that the stove had been turned on and asked who turned on the stove, and that’s when
Mr. Hightower realized his mistake.

Unfortunately for the elves, the only thing that survived was their outfits.

Mr. Hightower then called Chelsea and informed her of the bad news while she was still on the road.

Thankfully the elves “recovered”(mom’s shopping trip) and showed up with a message for the parents: “Bake cookies, not elves.”