Elf On The Shelf ideas... but sssshhh! Don't tell anyone!

So it's almost that time of year again, when our lovely little Christmas Elf On The Shelf arrives to watch over the girls in the run up to Christmas. Lord knows I haven't got time to be watching them, I'll be too busy buying presents, and wrapping, and making up Elf antics... oh.

There is a 'standard' Elf on The Shelf, but as our family likes to be a bit different (and to be honest I found that one a bit creepy and decided ours should be cuddly) I plumped for this gorgeous fella:

Meet Elf Pepper Jollybells Winters!

In case you haven't a clue what I'm talking about, this is a fairly new tradition which has been started up, and which you have to be very careful about being sucked into will love to pieces. It involves the arrival of an Elf, as previously mentioned, who then sits on a shelf and watches your children to make sure they are good and that they therefore deserve presents from Santa.

OK, I know, I know, there are lots of arguments right there about whether this is a good idea or not, but to me it seemed like just a bit of fun, and so last year I took the plunge immediately (spontaneous, moi?!) and dashed off to acquire our family an Elf.

He came in a box with his very own passport, record card for himself and behaviour charts for the girls. The latter were not so well filled out to be honest. But Elf Pepper amused us all (mostly Chris & me) with his antics daily, and caused a couple of headaches and post-midnight panics as we remembered he had to 'do' something overnight and we hadn't yet decided what. Rather than list them all (as there are hundreds of websites out there with great ideas for you!) I thought I'd just give you a photo collage of our December last year. 

My favourite was probably the 'car parked badly' idea... he hadn't been drinking, he's just never learned to drive.

So if you do find that you can't stop yourself from dashing out to buy one, and that your brain is aching for all of Advent, please don't blame me. I did warn you.



If you're intrigued and want to know what the standard one looks like, you can check here - but only if you promise to leave me a comment first!!!