Elf On The Shelf is a tradition I absolutely love. The magic and excitement our elves bring in the run up to Christmas is just amazing and the joy on my kids faces each morning when they find the elves is worth every bit of effort we make. For those of you who haven’t heard of this before I’ll give you a quick low down on how it works.
Your elf arrives on 1st December and every night he flies back to Santa to report on the children’s behaviour. Each morning when the children wake up they have to find the elf who gets up to all sorts of mischief in the middle of the night when he has returned from reporting to Santa. He plays naughty tricks or sometimes brings gifts or things for them to do (i.e. cards to make for friends and family). I hope you find these elf on the shelf ideas useful. The photos are from our Elf’s antics over the years!!
- Elf’s arrival! Our elf arrives with the children’s advent calendars. Last year he also brought a book advent (a book for each day leading up to xmas). This year he will bring a special box with xmas pjs, reindeer food, hot choc, etc. A lot of people do this on xmas eve instead.
2. ‘Chilling’ in the fridge
3. Safari drive
4. Light saber battle
5. Toilet paper streamers
6. Bath time
7. Story time
8. Chicken pox! (Xmas 2014 both Lois and Cody were covered in chicken pox so of course Joey Jingles ended up with it too!)
9. North pole tea
10. Hiding in the washing machine
11. Santa says its time to put up your Xmas decorations
12. North Pole breakfast (probably my absolute favourite one on this list – perfect for a Saturday or Sunday morning). This included Christmas crackers, Xmas tree shaped crumpets, pan au chocolate,etc. To drink we had the choice of milkshake,hot chocolate or sparkling party juice 🙂
13. Poor snowman!
14. It’s a wrap! (this one had the kids in hysterics!)
15. BBQ time!
16. Decorating the Xmas tree (our elves have used cotton wool buds to look like snow balls, toilet paper and the funniest of all – the kid’s pants!)
17. Making breakfast
18. Elf capture! (those storm troopers REALLY want to be on the nice list and they won’t take no for an answer!!!)
19. Tea party with the other toys
20. Elf in trouble
21. Brushing their teeth
22. Colouring fun
23. Milk and biscuits
24. Snow from Lapland (you can usually buy fake snow in toy shops, etc)
25. Invitation to see Santa (great for when you are taking them to visit Santa somewhere)
26. Moustache fun! Add stick on moustaches to your photos or even your kids while they sleep!
27. Pizza and a movie in the Barbe house. You can get these sweet pizzas in poundland, B&M, etc
28. Playing shops with chocolate coins
29. Its a trap!
30. Candy canes on the Christmas tree
what an awesome blog post! I love these ideas especially the grated snowman ha ha!