Once upon a time in Marietta, GA, my grandmother blabbed to some lady about her Christmas tradition of hiding two posable elves she found at Home Depot around the house to “spy” on her grandchildren and tell Santa if they were being good. A few years later, “Elf on the Shelf” was born. The creator? Some lady out of Marietta, GA who was not my grandmother.

It seems the creativity and entrepreneurial potential, as well as the “getting beat to the punch curse,” is generational, because I too keep finding myself coming up with cool ideas, only to have someone beat me to them. One of these days that’ll change, but in the meantime I thought it’d be fun to actually list some of them out.

Granted, most of these I can’t prove I actually “thought of first,” so you’ll have to take my word for it, or just enjoy it as a reminder of the cool stuff that humans are capable of bringing to life.