Elf on the Shelf or similar?

[Twilightstarbright]

I'm thinking of doing Elf on the Shelf for DS this year, he'll be 3.5 and we are abroad with no chance of joining our family for Christmas so I wanted to do something fun- he loved his cousin's elf last year.

The actual elf creeps me out a little bit, has anyone done a similar thing with a different character/animal?

You could do it with anything.

One of the reindeers? Or an angel? Another less creepy elf

We got kindness elves one year. They’re cute, come in different colours and skin tones, and even baby elves.

We didn’t do very well with the acts of kindness though! All good intentions but in reality I can’t be doing with more stress before Christmas.

We had two mischievous mice move into our doll house. Dd loved Beatrix Potters The Tale of Two Bad Mice and I had two felt mice I found in Tiger. Ours weren’t vandals though, and every morning had added something small to the doll house.

Could you do it with his favourite teddy? So wait till he is asleep, steal said teddy and then do whatever with it, take a photo, put teddy safely back in bed and in the morning say ‘uhh-oh what’s this picture on mummy’s phone?’ And show him, Ds recently left his teddy at his grandparents and every day dad sent a picture of teddy doing various things. Ds found it hilarious. Sort of plan doing similar at Xmas.

We have a soft toy elf, which isn't freaky looking and we just move him around like the normal elf, he also brings the occasional gift and fills ds advent calander up.

Soft toy elf here too, they love it but I'll warn you it becomes a pita to continue to come up with fun ideas. Especially when you're going to sleep and remember you have to put the elf in the biscuit jar.

Advent Angel? Christmas Cat? Any stuffed toy would do really... does he have a favourite animal? Yuletide Yak? Festive Fox? Anything but that bloody creepy elf tbh

I was thinking of using an animal and putting a tiny Santa hat on it! I've been saving easy ideas on a Pinterest board and I'm keeping the bar low- DS is 3.5 so not huge expectations about it and he'd be very happy to see the Christmas cat or similar at the table for breakfast.

We're overseas in a serviced apartment without any of our normal Christmas stuff so I thought it'd be a fun thing to do.

One good thing about the weird looking elf is that it's really bendy, has Velcro hands and all the accessories are designed to fit

I wanted a different one but left it to late so got the standard elf and must say it make life easier than a friend who had a cuddly soft toy one

Be careful what you start. It's a pain thinking of something for it to 'do' every day. Then there's the questions as they get older. How does it get here? How's it gone back to North Pole? How does it tell Father C what it sees. A web of lies. I only did it for a couple of Christmases, didn't enjoy it but then I admit I can be a bit of a Scrooge with Christmas 😂

@Fleamaker123 I'm hoping as we are abroad in an odd place that it can be a one off "XXXX" Christmas tradition as it's SO different here.

That sounds lovely! As a one off it will be magical!

We do elf on the shelf, I wasn’t going to but then I got into it, it’s more for me than them😂. We use the real elf but kindness elves are great

@anorangeaday I suspect I'm enjoying planning the Christmas animal advent more than DS will enjoy it but hey I'm happy!