For those that participate in this tradition, when do you put your Elf out? I put mine out yesterday, as I felt my kids needed an early start to the tradition. My daughter told my husband on the way into school that she's not happy he's already here and that he shouldn't be out until December. I re-read the book, and the only thing I saw about a date was after Thanksgiving. Oh well, they need the "watchful" eyes of the elf NOW! :) I'm going to tell her that it officially the "holiday season" and that Santa must have thought they needed to be watched. ha ha
@Rachel - www.elfontheshelf.com - It's an elf and a story book that you "adopt" from a store like Barnes & Noble. You put him out during the holidays to keep a watch on your kids and their behavior. He reports back to Santa every night, then flies back to your house and sits in a different spot each time. The kids love waking up and looking for the elf. Mine has been in my house plants, the refrigerator, on the TV, etc... It's a lot of fun and it keeps them on their toes. :)
We are doing Elf on a Shelf the day after Thanksgiving. The rest of the year, they have a mommy dot on thier forehead. I tell t hem when they've done something bad or they are lying, there is a dot that shows up on thier forehead, but only mommy can see it. My son will put his hand over his forehead when he's done something he shouldn't. Dead give away, man.
I love the idea and book but the elf is creepy. My kids walked past it and when walking back to the front of the store asked to walk back a different way. I tell my daughter tinkerbell and the fairies help Santa . Tinkerbell and the fairies sprinkle pixie dust on her every night, if she is good, to give her sweet dreams and they tell Santa if she has been good or not each year.
Elfie doesn't come out til after Thanksgiving. I can't stand starting the Christmas season the day after Halloween, although it seems that all the stores have already started.
I have my 4 year old convinced I have a video camera that follows him around all the time :). My neighbors tell me some of the stuff they see him doing to give our morning sitter a hard time in the mornings and he has no idea who is telling me. So the poor kid thinks he is being followed...but it works! He has been good the last few days! LOL. So no elf of a shelf for us. When I wanted one I couldnt afford it. Boo :(. I think now is FINE!! If your kiddo's need a little reminder to be good...have at!
We used to sell these. so cute. I think you were smart to start when you noticed your children needed a reminder..
I almost suggested it on here the other night when people were asking about candy being left out for Halloween.. To place the Elf in the front window and attach a sign saying, the Elf is watching..
I had one customer say she wanted to leave it out all year round, but thought it would lose its power.
For those of you not familiar, here is the website.
http://www.elfontheshelf.com/
What's Elf on the Shelf?! This sounds really cute!!
ETA: OMG I LOVE IT!! :)
We do ours the day after thanksgiving! I would run out of places to hide our 'Doug', have fun!!
She sounds so witty and delightful. It sounds like a fun tradition but your daughter might be a little stressed thinking the elf is already "watching" her. If she isn't liking the elf then there is too much focus on "The elf is watching YOU."
Maybe focus on the elf seeing all the good she is doing and not so much about the elf seeing all the bad that is being done and reporting it back to Santa. That to me is a little creepy...I know that is not what you are meaning to do. I love the elf idea and that it has been marketed and has a book. I heard about this tradition years and years ago.
Good luck and best wishes!!
I think it's great. I have heard of this but never put into practice. Good for you.!
My kids are little too old for this now, but I will tell you this: kind of along the same lines of the post earlier today wondering why all of her ideas get stolen, my grandmother did this to my mother who did it to me & so I do it to my kids. This is not a new tradition in my family, it's been going on for over 55 years!! With that being said, we always put ours out the day after Thanksgiving.
This will be our first "elf on a shelf" year as my oldest is almost 3 and I think a great age to start. :) We will bring out our elf (or whatever other stuffed animal I can find cheep. :)) the weekend after Thanksgiving when all of our Christmas stuff comes out.
Our Elf comes out when the Christmas decorations come out, and that's generally the weekend after Thanksgiving - because that's when we get our tree too.
our pixie comes the day after t-giving. yep mama you are wayyy early. i only say this because I am afraid your daughter will get tired of having to behave for 2 months. you know what I mean. Even my kids start getting antsy mid-way through december. i have to say though, my kids, age 7. looove the elf. love him. i do too. he makes my life easier when he arrives :)
Ours is usually found on the porch or in the house- gift wrapped the evening of Thanksgiving. My girls love it- although I think my 10 year old has caught on :) So glad you brought this up cause I always forget until the very last minute!!
Our elf, Henry, makes his appearance the day after Thanksgiving. We have a hard time remembering to move it every night so I don't want to have to do it for longer than a month.
Our elf doesn't show up until the Christmas tree goes up... and the first hiding place is always in the tree.
I think it is too early for the elf to be out.... We decided we are going to mail the Elf to ourselves this year and post it "From the North Pole". Then tell the little one that Santa sent the Elf to make sure she is behaving... I think It's genius!
I put mine out the first day of Dec.
Wish I could have him out all year, lol..... He's packed away up in my attic or else he would be on our shelf right now.. I think after Halloween is a perfect time~
Last year was the first year we did our elf and it didn't get delivered until the second week of Dec. so that's when we started. This year, I wanted to start the first Sat of Dec. but my mom will be in town and my husband really wants to do it when it is just us. My son was only 13 months last year so this will really be his first year of it since he probably won't remember it and my husband wants to enjoy him seeing it without my loving but loud mom hanging around too!! If it were up to me, I would do it the day after Thanksgiving but my husband wants to wait a L. longer. He thinks it will get old with the kids after 30 days but they are only 2 and 3 years old. My husband can be a bit of a scrooge at times!
My Elf Benard, comes after Thanksgiving just as the book says. I try to remember to do it Thanksgiving night but sometimes it is a day or two after. Also he is supposed to move everynight and sometimes I forget but I can always come up with why he possibly didn't move. My kids love him and have had friends who started asking their parents where their elf was. So they had to ask me and have now encorporated it as a tradition themselves.
Our Elf comes out on Thanksgiving Day, we are gone all to to visit family and when we get home that evening he is already there! I always get the kids in the car and then **forget** something in the house, I run back inside and put him out where they will see him!!
We put our Elf out after Thanksgiving, but we have a Santa chart starting Nov 1. The kids have expectations (these can be adj for age), but they have to get dressed, make bed, feed fish, brush teeth in morning and put dirty clothes away, get pjs on, brush teeth at night to earn their "Good" sticker on the chart for the day (to help Santa know if you have been "good or bad"...) Too many "bad" sad faces would make Santa sad, so the kids try really hard each day to get their good stickers.
This will be the first year that we will be doing this tradition. I'm excited to share it with the kids...they don't know about it yet. I made 3 scrapbooks and bought 3 disposable cameras for the kids to take pictures of the elf each day and plan to develop the pics after Christmas and let them put the pics into the scrapbook - something fun to do over Christmas vacation. I plan to bring it out the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
We never actually had the physical elf to sit on a shelf. I have always just told the kids "the elves are watching you" and they report back to Santa when you are good AND bad, that's how he keeps track. I would even say things like "good job picking up, I'm sure Santa's elf saw that". The kids are older now and I still say things like that but don't start until after Tgiving. I too don't like to start thinking about Christmas before Thanksgiving even gets here. =)
I was thinking about getting ours out too :)
Jack (our Elf on the Shelf) arrives the night before Thanksgiving and always has. My oldest loves to walk up Thanksgiving morning to Jack's return! He usually brings some early gifts with him for the family - always a new Christmas movie for us all to enjoy, popcorn to pop in our stove top popper that he gave us a few years ago, and some little stuff for the girls (this year he's leaving some cute Christmas / Santa themed search and find books age appropriate for my daughters and I'm still looking around for some other cute, small ideas).
