Elf on the shelf

[Thomo0111]

Hi all, thinking about starting the elf this year for my 3 year old (I have a 1 year old too but obviously she won’t really understand).

For anyone that does this did you let the kids name the elves? Or did you pick names that they arrived with? If so, please can you spam me with name ideas. I’m thinking of doing a boy and girl so as my kids grow up they have one each.

Also, did you have the rule that they cannot be touched?

Lastly, any cool ideas are welcome please. I’d like to try get a rough plan together of each day in advance as I know I’ll come up blank under pressure haha!

Thanks so much from a mummy who is new to all of this 🤣

Elf Outfits at 'The Range':

More Elf outfits (The Range):

Playing Card, Mince Pie and Super Elf! (Outfits at The Range)

I think this is our 6th year of the elf. My children LOVE it, they look forward to it all year. They touch the elf and also named him. I joined an ideas FB group and some insta pages. I screen shot them whenever I see an idea I like and have a folder on my phone.
I never do anything elaborate, usually stuff like these examples.

Best tip I ever received was the elf goes to school/nursery in the week and then only appears at weekends

For anyone wanting to downscale the effort of the elf try the little advent fairy, there’s a book about it. She’s a kind advent visitor and the magic just takes care of itself.

'One Stop Elf Shop' at 'The Works':

@AhBiscuits Have you inserted bendable wire into their legs?

Yes, we have elves.

I named them - one boy and one girl (same as my kids) and they're called Bernard and Clover.

They bring the Advent calendars on the first and an Advent candle. Kids can touch them. They do know though that the elves don't always get up to mischief and sometimes just move around. Also they know sometimes they move whilst they're at school.

We have never bought any of the special extra bits though that go with them. Ours often dangle off of things with tinsel, get some of the toy cars out and ride on them, sometimes bake 🤦🏻‍♀️ and go for a bath in the toy kitchen sink. Sometimes on Christmas eve they get up to a few extra things throughout the day if there's time.

I wouldn’t. We started it 13 years ago when it was not popular over here whatsoever, I found out about it from this very forum and thought it sounded great. We still have the fucker because I have a fairly sizeable age gap between eldest and youngest DC. It’s such a pain to remember to move it every night and do elaborate things with it. I’m lazy nowadays and just do things like sticking it in the letterbox or drawing faces on fruit. I named it because they were too small to when I got it.