Sunday, December 11, 2011

Elf on the Shelf

While searching around on Pinterest I've seen lots of pins about "elf on the shelf." I was wondering for a while what the heck this whole elf thing was about and (for reasons unknown) I finally decided to google it yesterday. Although I feel this tradition is 100% American, I am a little intrigued by the whole idea! The idea stems from a book explaining how Santa knows which kids and naughty and nice with the help of an elf! After reading the book your family can adopt it's very own elf that with a bit of Santa's Christmas magic, the scout elves keep an eye out for Santa! Just look how cute the little elves are:


Each night your little elf flys back to Santa to report on how your kiddos are doing on the whole "naughty/nice" scale and then get up to mischief around the house! Just look at some of the wonderfully delightful and imaginative things these elves have been up to from Pinterest:

(in this one the elf on the shelf painted each of the kids' noses red)


Aha! I love it! I am sure I would have loved waking up each morning and trying to find what the little elf was up to the previous night! And boy do those elves ever have some shenanigans! Look at all the amazing elf on the shelf ideas from Flickr! Yup, I'm pretty sure if I ever have children of my own we are definitely adopting an elf!

The only thing I don't really like about the whole thing is that he arrives from just after Thanksgiving until Christmas eve. Sure that is fine for American's and their late November festivities, but here in Canada I doubt I'd want to start getting ready for the holidaysLink before Halloween even happens. I guess you could try to modify the tradition to just take place during December (which is much more doable in my mind), but that doesn't really follow the book which kind of takes away from the magic of the whole thing. Alas, I have many years to figure out the details before jumping into that boat. What do you think? Anyone out there take part in the hide and seek elf fun? Are you thrilled to get started now (i.e. Leslie?)? I'd love to hear from you!
posted by Kate at 7:00 AM

4 comments:

  1. berylemccDecember 11, 2011 at 10:01 AM

    I love it. I am sure I would have done it when you were young. Maybe I could do it for your Dad, you know put a fishing lure under his pillow ... No that wouldn't be elf like.

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  2. AnonymousDecember 11, 2011 at 10:53 AM

    We are doing Elf on the Shelf for the first time here but I did not delve into the whole "Elf is watching you for Santa" type of thing because I am pretty sure my kids would be freaked out. We don't use guilt and manipulation to get good behavior, which is what most parents use Elf for. However, we do have lots of fun seeing what our Elf, aka Vicki, has done the night before. (She decorated our tree with underwear, drank syrup, had a snowball fight with the Lego dudes...)

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  3. LesliejmDecember 11, 2011 at 8:06 PM

    I agree that I don't like the guilt "Santa's watching" aspect, but do like the idea of seeing what the Elf did the night before.

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  4. beka {ginger*urchin}December 11, 2011 at 8:24 PM

    This is just too delightful! Apart from the awkward Americanisms, I think this could be fairly easy to modify to Canadian/British culture too... One to remember for next year I think now... Thank you for following your curiosity and sharing this fun 'tradition' :D

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