Our story
How we got here
Before there was an Assembly, there was Santa’s Workshop.
For centuries, elves worked within its walls, learning their craft, refining their skills, and contributing to a shared seasonal purpose. The arrangement was stable and well-intentioned, and for a long time, it worked.
Over time, however, the nature of the work changed. Output increased. Tools evolved. Expectations grew. What didn’t keep pace was how the work itself was organised.
The elves began to see that the quality of their craft depended not only on skill, but on structure. Decisions made far from the workbench slowed improvement. Good ideas travelled slowly. Care remained, but control did not.
The question was never whether the work mattered. It was whether it could be done better.
A brief history of the Assembly
Rather than break away in protest, the elves reorganised with intent.
Small, quiet experiments came first. Shared planning. Open information. Collective responsibility for outcomes. What emerged was not disorder, but clarity. When the elves took ownership of their work, the work improved. Processes became more thoughtful. Standards were protected. Pride returned, not just in what was made, but in how it was made.
Over time, those experiments became the foundation of something more deliberate.
Elf Assembly was formed as a worker-owned cooperative, independent in structure, aligned in spirit with its origins, and built around the belief that good craft depends on good governance.
Our timeline
Before the Workshop
Long before formal structures existed, elves worked in small, informal groups. Craft was shared by watching, copying, and improving on what came before. Tools were personal. Knowledge was communal.
The work had no fixed owner and no fixed hierarchy. What mattered was care, patience, and the quiet pride of making something well.
The founding of Santa’s Workshop
Santa’s Workshop brought elves together under one roof. It gave the work consistency, shared purpose, and a dependable rhythm to the year.
Toymaking became a collective effort at scale. Skills travelled further, traditions formed, and generations of elves learned their craft side by side.
Tradition becomes structure
Over time, established ways of working hardened into routine. Roles settled. Methods were repeated. Decisions followed tradition more often than insight.
The craft remained careful and sincere, but change arrived slowly, even as the world beyond the workshop continued to shift.
The first quiet questions
As tools improved and expectations grew, some elves began to notice small limits in how the work was organised. Good ideas moved slowly. Inefficiencies repeated themselves.
These were not demands, just questions shared quietly over benches and between shifts.
From experiment to insight
Small cooperative experiments began to appear. Planning was shared. Information opened up. Responsibility became collective rather than assigned.
A clear pattern emerged. When decisions were made closer to the work, standards improved. Structure, not skill, was holding the craft back.
Forming the Assembly
Those insights gradually became formal structure. Ownership was rethought. Decision-making became democratic. Transparency replaced assumption.
Elf Assembly emerged as a worker-owned cooperative, independent in structure and deliberate in scale, committed to staying elf-scaled by design.
A living cooperative
Elf Assembly operates as a worker-owned cooperative. Every elf is an owner. Every voice carries weight. Craft, care, and collective responsibility guide the work.
The toys still matter. But the way they are made matters just as much.
Where we are now, and what comes next
Today, Elf Assembly operates as an elf-scaled cooperative. Every elf is an owner. Every voice carries weight. Decisions take time, but they are made by those closest to the work.
We remain intentionally small, deliberately collective, and open to change. Tools will evolve. New elves will join. Traditions will be questioned and reshaped. What will not change is the commitment to shared ownership, transparent decision-making, and craft done properly, without shortcuts or silent hierarchies.
Elf Assembly is not a finished story. It is a working one.