Elf on the Shelf Ideas

A couple of years ago my mother-in-law bought an Elf on the Shelf set for my daughters. I was super excited because I remember an elf that lived in our Christmas tree when I was a little girl. He had white flannel clothes with red pinstripes on them, but no one in the family has any idea where he disappeared to over the years.

We named our first elf Johnny. Last Christmas we adopted a second elf who had been forgotten in a box of Christmas ornaments given to a friend. We had just seen the cute movie, The Elf on the Shelf, so my younger daughter decided to name him Chippey. It seems like everyone has an elf now, I even saw girl elves available at Target!

Anyway, now that my girls are getting older, they are starting to doubt the magic that causes the elves to travel to the North Pole each night and then come back to a new spot in our house before they get up each day (it doesn't help that someone got out of bed one night and caught me helping the elves into their new spots.)

This year I decided to be a little more creative and started checking the internet. I have found some really great links on Pinterest for ideas of what kinds of things other families' elves on the shelf do.

Here are a few of ours:

Who's been playing in my jewelry??

The boys have some "me" time in the bathroom.

They have such tiny hands that they have to work together to run the PS3 controller. Now that's teamwork!

They look so innocent, but if they didn't do it, why do they have sugar on their butts and feet???

Use the force!

Graffiti is so naughty!

Wow, they really told us who's on which list...didn't know Santa kept a "Very Nice" list though.

It looks like their prank backfired...for Chippey at least.


Here are a few great ideas from my friends:

Here are some more links for ideas:
Picklehead Soup
LilBlueBoo
livinglocurto
LMents Photography
Mommy Upgrade
Clearly Candace