The Elf on the Shelf : A Christmas Tradition

We're baaaack here  at the Big Apple and my kids are absolutely loving the COLD (hmm not so much me but I'm good!). We are spending the holidays here and this year we introduced the kids to the "ELF ON THE SHELF". Apparently it's a popular tool here to instil discipline in a fun way. 

This is how it works: 

The "Elf in the Shelf" includes a special scout elf sent from the North Pole to help Santa Claus manage his naughty and nice lists. When a family adopts a scout elf and gives it a name, the scout elf receives its Christmas magic and can fly to the North Pole each night to tell Santa Claus about all of the day's adventures. Each morning, the scout elf returns to its family and perches in a different place to watch the fun. Children love to wake up and race around the house looking for their scout elf each morning. 

The Elf on the Shelf comes with this book which explains how to go about this tradition. It is a cleverly rhymed book telling the story of Santa's scout elves, who are sent to be Santa's eyes and ears inside each home. The first step is to actually give a name to your elf. Henri wanted "George" but Sofia insisted on "Michael". To be fair to both, we decided to give our little elf buddy "Michael George". There were certain rules with MG (Michael George) such as you cannot touch him to move him, you can talk to him but he will never talk back, etc. And so this tiny elf kept us company the next few days until Christmas Day. Every night he would go back to the North Pole and report to Santa about how Henri and Sofia were. Each morning the kids would wake up all excited to find where MG is. Here are some of the fun spots he perched on...

The internet gives a whole lot of ideas of where and what to do with the elf on the shelf as well. Here are some witty ones which gave me funny ideas for next year;  *taken from various mommy websites. Maybe I'll document what we do for next year...

 Woohoo! Let is snow!

 Cookie Butter, anyone?

 So clever! My fave I think! Hahaha!

 Snow angel in the kitchen

You can be fun and creative with your little elf buddy and the biggest and most important thing is that it keeps the kids at their best behaviour because they know that he reports back Santa to the North Pole every night and at lightning speed is back again at home in the morning. His last day will be the night before Christmas before he leaves and makes his final assessment with Santa to determine whether a kid is on the nice or naughty list.

Henri and Sofia both made it to the NICE list this year and thus received what they wanted from Santa on Christmas Day.

Sofia got her Barbie doll set and Henri got his helicopter :)

What's your Christmas tradition? Share away! Merry Christmas once again and enjoy the rest of the holidays!

love,

Mommy Pattie