Hallo-who?
Oh, sorry, that silly old October 31st holiday is so last August. Get with the times—it’s the holiday season already! Which, for some ungodly reason, means we’re getting another Elf on the Shelf Cereal.
First came Elf on the Shelf Sugar Cookie Cereal in 2019. It was an over-simplistically sugary cereal, far more forgettable than the accursed eldritch Elf-scourge whose name it bears.
Then last year we got Elf on the Shelf Vanilla Candy Cane Cookie Crunch Cereal. In addition to its criminal abuse of consonance, this stuff tasted terrible. Like a mint Lifesaver scraped off the bottom of someone’s snow boot.
Now to complete this tepid trilogy (at least, dear most holy Saint Nick, I pray this is the end) comes Elf on the Shelf Hot Cocoa Cereal. From the looks of its cocoa stars and marshmallows, this stuff is unlikely to surpass General Mills’ similar Hot Cocoa Cocoa Puffs, which was, in itself, exceptionally mediocre. In fact, EotS Hot Cocoa will probably be worse, since this cereal family historically has the worst marbits ever. Seriously: these chewy, pill-sized marsh-molars could sink a cereal brand ten times mightier than Elf on the Shelf.
Sorry if I sound hopelessly pessimistic, but I am. That devilish shelf-sitting sprite has every right to try proving me wrong, but given his putrid precedent, he’s guilty until proven innocent.
I agree that Elf on the Shelf cereals are uniquely horrible even for the usual licensed cereal dreck, and the tiny, scarce marbits are just obnoxious.
It’s not like marbits are some kind of scarce resource. You’d think Kellogg’s would realize that throwing in a lot of decent-size marbits is a good way to distract from how pedestrian the rest of a cereal is. Given that chocolate cereals are already kind of boring, I’m not eager to see how Elf on the Shelf can make it worse.