UPDATE 12/23: THE HUNT IS OVER
Twenty-six days. Two hundred and some miles on the minivan. Five o'clock mornings in parking lots with strangers holding coffee. And who finds him? My mother-in-law. At a hardware store. She went in for ice melt on Saturday and there he was on an endcap behind the snow shovels, one lonely Elmo that nobody thought to look for in a hardware store. She paid the regular price, put him in the trunk under a blanket, and called me from the pay phone out front. I'm told I made a noise.

Elmo is wrapped and hidden at Grandma's. Nicky has no idea. I will be eating my words about my mother-in-law's driving at every holiday from now until the end of time, and that is a price I'm happy to pay.

I'm leaving the sightings and tips up for anybody still out there hunting. Don't give up, and don't forget the stores nobody thinks of. Merry Christmas, everybody. — Ray

My son Nicky is four. Back in November he saw Tickle Me Elmo on TV, and that was the end of the list for Santa. Not a list anymore. One item: "the laughing Elmo." On Thanksgiving I said to my wife, how hard can it be? It's a stuffed toy. They must make millions of them.

That was Day 1.

If you don't have a preschooler: Elmo is the little red monster on Sesame Street. This one is a plush Elmo that giggles when you squeeze him, and on the third squeeze he really loses it, laughing and shaking all over. It retails for around $29. Then it was on the talk shows and the news, and by the first week of December you could not find one anywhere between here and Pittsburgh. So I started this page to keep track of the hunt and trade information with other parents, and a lot of you wrote in. Thank you.

1. Call ahead the night before and ask, nicely, what morning the trucks come in. Some stores will tell you.
2. Be there when the doors open. On truck days, the Elmos are gone in minutes, not hours.
3. Check the stores nobody thinks of. Drugstores, supermarkets, card shops, hospital gift shops. Hardware stores. (I cannot stress hardware stores enough.)
4. Don't pay the scalpers. A $29 toy is not worth $300, and every one we buy from them keeps them in business.
5. Be kind to the clerks. They did not cause this. They have heard "do you have any Elmos" four hundred times today.
6. Have a Plan B. A letter from Santa saying the elves ran out and Elmo will come in January is a perfectly respectable Christmas present for a four-year-old.