Elf on a Shelf

A new tradition began in our house this first day of December. We got our Elf on a Shelf. I had not heard of this 30 year old Christmas tradition until Danisa told me about it last year. It's a cute book that comes with a little elf. The story goes that he is Santa's helper and it's his task to watch the kids in the house daily. Each night, he magically goes back to the North Pole to report what he's observed to Santa. Each morning, the kids have to find his new perch where he's returned to watch again.

I had the book wrapped to make it more special. It's after baths so they are in their jammies...it looked like a preview of Christmas morning. The kids are cute- they love presents and they love books. So it was fun to start with!

The book indicates that the first "task" is to name the elf. After some silly nonsense names, Brady called him Gingerbread and Sylvie repeated, "Gingerbear." LOL! I love it!

Oddly enough, Sylvie seems to get it more so than Brady and is more excited about our new little resident. We told the kids the first time Gingerbear was going to play hide and seek with them. They counted and then went searching for him. Brady asked for a hint and when Daddy said, "He's near something you can see your reflection in," it was SYLVIE who went straight to the mirror and said, "mee-ah! Gingerbear up dare!!" :p

Yes, the 22-month old gets it. She's awesome!

I'm back-blogging and can say that it's been 2 weeks since our resident elf arrived. He makes for a fun time each morning when the kids try to find where he is on his new perch (also makes for a fun time for me when I bolt up realizing, "I didn't move Gingerbear!" as I try to distract Brady and keep him upstairs while I stumble around without my contacts in and find the little guy a new space for the day. Brady seems to be tossing the idea of "elf magic" around in his head. One morning he said to me, "Where did you put him?" I replied, "I didn't put him anywhere! He's wherever he wanted to be when he returned from the North Pole early this morning." He goes, "How could he even do that? He's a stuffie. His legs don't really work." I was stunned, I said, "uh, magic!" But then just a few days ago, when Gingerbear fell from his perch on the window cornice when I closed the back door, I had to pick him back up. Brady goes, "Don't touch him! He'll lose his magic!" (b/c the book outlines this "rule") So who knows what's going on in his brain? But it's fun to hear about it!