As a family, we all love christmas and the build up to it. It is such a special time of year, for giving, thinking of others, traditions, fun, children and family.
Last year, I first heard about ‘the elf on the shelf’, a great christmas tradition. He is a little elf you can buy, he comes to your house on 1st Dec and stays with you until christmas. He has been sent from santa, to watch over the house and family, see who’s being good and who’s not. He flies back to santa every night to report and returns again by the morning, landing in a different place everyday. This means you can have so much fun with him. He must not be touched, otherwise his magic will go and won’t be able to fly.
When I first heard about this, I absolutely fell in love with the idea, so we had to get one (or you could make your own, you don’t have to spend money on buying the ‘real thing’).
Our elf arrived last December and we named him ‘Jack’, as you have to name your elf. The children absolutely adored Jack, they would rush downstairs everyday running around, trying to find where Jack was each morning. We had lots of laughs, placing Jack in some interesting places….he played with the toy cars, he had a bite out of an apple from the fruit bowl, he rode on the toy dog, he sat on the roof of our nativity advent calendar and in our christmas tree. The children loved him. Then on christmas eve night, Jack left us with a note, that he will return again next December. We are all now looking forward to seeing him again in a couple of weeks time.
The ‘elf on the shelf’ comes with a beautiful story book which the children love to read. Then we also got the DVD, which I must say was absolutely perfect for us, as it was a family of an older boy who had 2 younger twin sisters! I think this made the whole experience even more magical!
This time, I have been doing some surfing on pinterest, for more ideas of what to do with our elf when he returns. If you’d like some ideas please follow my ‘elf on the shelf’ board on pinterest.
Our ‘elf on the shelf’ is going to be such a great, fun, family tradition, I think we will be continuing with it long after the children don’t believe in it. My husband and I got so excited every night thinking of what we could do with ‘Jack’. I love creating christmas traditions for the children to grow up with and remember, it is such an important part of childhood.
What christmas traditions do you have? Do you have an ‘elf on the shelf’, what does he get up to?