I'm going to be subjected to many many posts via FB and various blogs about "What to do with Elf on a Shelf?" and "Look at the CRAZY antics our Elf is up to!"
FFS. It's a stuffed doll. No one cares how clever you are with it. All the other moms are doing the exact.same.thing. You are not unique. Stop it.
Ha! I always thought it was kind of creepy, but last year my dad got me one and SST actually loved waking up and seeing the elf in different places each morning.
I have no desire to get any more creative than 'look, he's on top of the curtain rod!' with it though. Nor do I have any illusions that anyone else in the world besides my kids cares what our elf is doing.
Is the point of the elf to force your kids to behave at Christmas time? Because if you need a doll to do that for you, you might actually have a year long problem there.
I finally caved and got one. I find dolls to be creepy as hell so I will be sure to tell my children when they are older all about the massive sacrifice mommy made for their happiness and entertainment.
I have no desire to get any more creative than 'look, he's on top of the curtain rod!' with it though. Nor do I have any illusions that anyone else in the world besides my kids cares what our elf is doing.
there is a whole curriculum that I use in PK devoted to teaching positional words and pre-writing skill with the use of a puppet. Every day* the kids have to use a complete sentence to answer the question - Where is Squawker? and we can come up with sentence variants, Squawker is on the curtain rod, but he is also above the window, under the ceiling, beside the clock, near the curtains...
*ish
so there can be some learning beyond 'he's watching' but I totally agree that there is no need to give updates on FB
Aww, come on! How can you not love the elf creeping on the Willow Tree couple?!?! The elf is super creechy, but the kids love the elves. We have two.
Anyway, I take pics of our elves, and I do it via instagram (sorry if you follow me), because it's easy to do a photo book of it at the end of December. Then Elfin and Jingle Belle bring it with them on December 1st for the kids. Jackson loses his mind over the photobook. This year is the first year I used instagram, but the year before I did it just using my camera, and it was more of a PITA.
I finally broke down and bought it. Then I casually mentioned to Jack that Santa was sending an elf to our house to watch him and his eyes got big with terror. AWWW yeah this thing is going to be great lol.
I will not post about it on FB though. I have my street cred to keep up.
Oh and we don't do it for behavior, we do it because I'm cheesy as hell about holidays and it gets the kids excited for Christmas and counting down to the big day.
Last year, I hung it by it's legs from the rungs of the top bunk while Jackson was sleeping - he woke up and it was there and he was TERRIFIED. It was amazing.
I about lost it when my mommy martyr FB friend complained about how expensive it is.
Ummm....you don't need to buy the patented Elf for it to be an elf...
My mom has a whole troupe of elves that my grandmother made 30+ years ago with Styrofoam ball heads, pipe cleaner bodies, and felt clothes. We didn't to EOTSh with them - but they are neat, clearly cheap, and have lasted forever.
It is suppose to be a fun thing that they look forward to every morning. I don't do many cheesy holiday things so this seemed like something I could manage. The added bonus, is that it is an elf who keeps an eye on the kids and reports back to Santa.
And hell yes I use anything I can to keep my kid in line even if it is a tool that only works for 30 days of the year.
What is the point of Santa if I can't threaten my child that Santa is watching him during the month of December?
Last year, I hung it by it's legs from the rungs of the top bunk while Jackson was sleeping - he woke up and it was there and he was TERRIFIED. It was amazing.
LOLOLOL! Ok, I could maybe get down with doing something like this.
I bought a playmobil advent calendar to set up with ZB to help count down to xmas.
It is suppose to be a fun thing that they look forward to every morning. I don't do many cheesy holiday things so this seemed like something I could manage. The added bonus, is that it is an elf who keeps an eye on the kids and reports back to Santa.
And hell yes I use anything I can to keep my kid in line even if it is a tool that only works for 30 days of the year.
What is the point of Santa if I can't threaten my child that Santa is watching him during the month of December?
Only the month of December?? I've been using Santa threats since September, at least.
It is suppose to be a fun thing that they look forward to every morning. I don't do many cheesy holiday things so this seemed like something I could manage. The added bonus, is that it is an elf who keeps an eye on the kids and reports back to Santa.
And hell yes I use anything I can to keep my kid in line even if it is a tool that only works for 30 days of the year.
What is the point of Santa if I can't threaten my child that Santa is watching him during the month of December?
It is suppose to be a fun thing that they look forward to every morning. I don't do many cheesy holiday things so this seemed like something I could manage. The added bonus, is that it is an elf who keeps an eye on the kids and reports back to Santa.
And hell yes I use anything I can to keep my kid in line even if it is a tool that only works for 30 days of the year.
What is the point of Santa if I can't threaten my child that Santa is watching him during the month of December?
Are they supposed to look for it each day?
Yes - the idea is that when the kids go to bed, the elf flies up to the north pole to report to Santa how good the kids were that day. And the next morning, he lands in a different place, so the kids look to see where he landed that morning. It's kind of fun, despite the creepiness of the elf.
ETA: that's how we do it at least. I'm not sure if that's the officially sanctioned way to do it.