Trivia: Originally, the store Buddy and Jovie work in was supposed to be a Macy's. However, Macy's quickly dropped out of the project when they got the script and saw that there was a scene where Buddy confronts a fake mall-Santa in the store for not being the real Santa. Reportedly, Macy's representatives indignantly told the studio that "Macy's Santa is the REAL Santa!"
Trivia: Will Ferrell actually walked down Lincoln Tunnel in full costume, causing several minor accidents.
Trivia: The character Jovie originally didn't sing in the script. Her singing was added after director Jon Favreau found out that actress Zooey Deschanel was a talented singer/songwriter.
Trivia: Director Jon Favreau has a voice cameo as Mr. Narwhal.
Trivia: Director Jon Favreau makes a cameo appearance in the film as the Hobbs' family doctor.
Trivia: Peter Billingsley, the child actor who starred as Ralphie in "A Christmas Story" (1983), has a minor part as a supervisor elf in the North Pole toy making scenes.
Trivia: A human is found as a baby by elves, is brought up by them, then finds out he is adopted and heads out to the big city to make his fortune (and there are a lot of jokes about his height thrown in). As a Terry Pratchett fan, this sounds very familiar to me. Terry has a character in his books called Carrot who was found as a baby by some dwarves and was brought up by them, then finds out he is adopted and heads off to the big city to seek his fortune. Carrot is also very innocent and has no sense of sarcasm or irony. His adopted father also says something to him about thinking he'd figure it out when he hit six feet tall.
Trivia: Buddy's comically-prolonged belch was provided by famed voice actor Maurice LaMarche, who is known for shows like "Pink and the Brain", "Futurama", and "The Real Ghostbusters."
Trivia: Will Ferrell turned down an offer of $29 million to appear in a sequel, because he was afraid of tarnishing the legacy of the first film, which was a huge hit and became a new holiday favorite for audiences.
Trivia: Will Ferrell's brother Patrick has a cameo as one of the security guards who repeatedly removes Buddy from his dad's building.
Trivia: Buddy's dad lives in the same building as Dana in "Ghostbusters", 55 Central Park West.
Trivia: The original script was written in 1993 and was much a much darker comedy in tone that was supposed to be rated PG-13. It was also intended to star Jim Carrey. However, the project kept getting held up, and Carrey eventually lost interest in it. The film finally started to come together in the early 2000's, when it was rewritten into a more family-friendly film and Will Farrell joined the cast. It was finally released in 2003 - ten years after it was originally written.
Trivia: When Buddy is startled by the Jack-in-a-Box toys, his reaction is genuine. Director Jon Favreau actually had a remote control that controlled the toys - Will Ferrell didn't know when they'd go off.
Answer: It might just be a regular elf doll that, coincidentally, is dressed in real elf clothes.