Elf On The Shelf

Have you heard about Elf on the Shelf?  It's a fun story all about elves that work with Santa at the North Pole.  The elf is at your home all of December.  Each night he uses his magic and flies back to the North Pole to report back to Santa on the kid's behavior.  Upon his arrival back to your house each night, he picks a new place to hang out for the day.  I should mention that they only way he keeps his magic is if the kids don't touch him. 

Everyone knows I love a good tradition so I was excited to add this one to our Christmas season this year.  I started off with an elf on the shelf breakfast.

 

Doesn't my kitchen table look awesome?  I'm totally dying over it!  We read the story about the elf on the shelf.  Then came the hard part, we had to name him.  There were lots of ideas thrown around.  We finally had it narrowed down to two;  Jingles and Ned.  We all voted, and as usually happens in our particular family, the girls won and he was named Jingles.  

Now the kids are excited to get up each morning and find where Jingles has chosen to be for the day.  Here's one place he was hanging around.

Tonight we put him in the living room. 

Do you remember the part in Finding Nemo where the sharks keep saying, "Fish aren't food.  Fish are your friends."  I'm not sure if my kids will catch on to that, however, I thought the Littlest Pet Shop students were over the top.  For the sake of full disclosure, I did not come up with this idea.  I, of course, found it on Pinterest.  I'm looking forward to a fun month of doing cute things with Jingles and watching my kids enjoy some of the magic of the season.