The folks at Office Max want you to elf yourself. Or elf someone one you love. Elf someone you can't stand. Whatever.

The office supply company has launched a holiday campaign on its Web site where bored workers whiling the day away in their cubicles can go to create all sorts of obnoxious holiday cheer.

"Elf Yourself" is among 20 different Web sites created by New York-based advertising firm Toy New York. They are located on a landing page fit snugly in the "Christmas and holiday gift guide" section of the Office Max site.

"It's a tough assignment," Toy founder and creative director Ari Merkin said of the holiday campaign. "Especially when you have to shout over all the holiday clutter. People don't usually go shopping for gifts at an office supply store."

But people are going to the holiday sites in droves.

Elfyourself.com is getting more than 200 hits a second, Merkin said, and 8 new elves are created per second. Tech folks had to upgrade the server three times in the last week. Bloggers can't stop talking about it, and it appeared on VH-1's "Best Week Ever" site last week and it was plugged on ABC's "Good Morning America."

At elf yourself, you create a wacky e-card for someone by downloading a picture, of which the face gets superimposed on a computer generated elf that resembles a "South Park" character. Enter in some text or record a saying and voila. It does a funny dance to your holiday ode.

The process is sort of lengthy and sort of annoying and the site breaks down every so often. But if you have a few minutes in your workday, it's not a bad way to pass the time.

Other sites that Toy created for the campaign include reindeer arm-wrestling and "Save the Snowman" where you play hangman against a melting snowman.

Merkin said his creative team worked around the clock from about September to get the job done.

"E-cards around the holidays are pretty lame and so we thought we'd start there," he said.

Whether or not it's actually serving its purpose, to help Office Max sell more, isn't known yet. The company be releasing sales results at the end of the quarter.

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Find it online:

http://www.elfyourself.com

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Colleen Long is an AP reporter in New York.

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