Elf on the Shelf – Yay or Nay?
With just a few days to go until the start of December, it’s not only time to think about Advent calendars, but also that other daily countdown thing that rears its head during December – the Elf on the Shelf! The idea of having a Christmas Elf come and ‘live’ in your house during December has been gaining in popularity over the past few years. It observes the children, reports back to Santa, and moves around the house getting up to all kinds of shenanigans when no one is looking.
I have to confess, I’m not a fan of Elf on the Shelf (which maybe answers the question of my blog post title already…) December is busy enough already without having to remember to move an Elf every night, and I also really don’t like the observation part of it. The fact that the original Elf on the Shelf doll looks a little bit creepy doesn’t help either. My kids wouldn’t buy in to it all anyway. I’m not sure if they still believe in Santa or are just humouring me – one of them believes in unicorns – but neither would believe that a toy comes to life at night.
But seven years ago, we were sent ‘An Elf for Christmas’ for review. He was soft and cuddly all over, really cute and not the slightest bit creepy. The Elf came with a reward kit, which we mostly chose not to use. The kids just ‘adopted’ him as a special toy to play with during December. Then at the end of Christmas, he went away in to storage until the next year. I still stand by everything I said in the initial review, and over the years we have found there are other ways to let some Elf magic in to your Christmas celebrations if you want to have some stress free fun with.
As mentioned above, when we initially received the Elf, the kids just had fun playing with him. They made him a bed, introduced him to their other toys, had some good Christmas themed play time. As they got older, they started having fun hiding the Elf for each other to find. No shenanigans, and not at a particular time of day, just hide-and-seek with the elf. Sometimes I would hide it for them, and sometimes they would hide it somewhere to surprise me, like on my pillow or hanging from the washing line. At some point over the past few years, I ordered a second Elf so they could each have one – less fighting!
Then last year, my then nine year old surprised me by saying please, please could we do Elf on the Shelf just once. He knew the Elf wasn’t real, and that it would be me moving him, but he wanted to take part just once before he got too old. Bless him. How could I say no. We agreed on some ground rules. It would absolutely be a one off. The Elves wouldn’t do anything mean or disgusting, and I wouldn’t be moving them around the house but would always arrange them in the kitchen for him to surprise him at breakfast each morning. He was happy with that.
I almost immediately regretted it, until I discovered there are lots of ready made prop and prompt packs that do all the organising for you. All you have to do it pick one each day. For environmental reasons, I didn’t want anything that came with a lot of plastic tat, and then by chance I discovered Porky Penguin who do a pack of easy daily elf ideas that mostly use props from around the house, with a minimal amount of extras to buy. Very low effort in exchange for happy faces. So I bought a pack, and it was perfect! This is not an ad by the way, or I guess maybe it is but an unprompted one. I paid for it myself, and just wanted to share because I loved it so much.
The pack included a main info card, a shopping list, 24 scene information cards, and 24 prop cards. Each scene card includes a list of what you need foThe shopping list made it super easy to gather everything, and the vast majority I was able to tick off without even going to the shops. I did pay a bit extra to get some ‘Emergency Day Off’ cards add-on, which gave me a reprieve if there were any ideas I really didn’t want to do, though only ended up using it once.
You can use the ideas in any order you like. I made myself a wee planner, where I plotted out which idea to do on which day, and between that and the cards it was a breeze preparing the scenes each night. You can download a free copy of the planner below. Porky Penguin do a new pack each year, so it will be different ideas for this year (though it’s definitely staying a one off for us). If you’ve left it too late to order, then they also offer various printable digital downloads, as does the Elf for Christmas website mentioned above. Or check out my Chrismas Elves album on Facebook from last year, if you just want some last minute inspiration.
So, where do you stand with Elf on the Shelf? Are you an old hand? A recent convert? Or a staunch nay sayer? Do you go all in? Or will Christmas elves never cross your threshold? Or do you do a half way house and just have some fun with your elves like we normally do? Whatever you do, I hope you have a fun and not too stressful December!
>> Download Christmas Elf Planner
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