12 days of elves

One of these days I'm gonna rise above feeling like I have to include disclaimers in my posts, but until then........Here's another:

We do not teach our children about Santa Clause. They know he's pretend just like the tooth fairy. 

So a few years ago when the elf on a shelf got popular they were loving it and wanted an elf at their house. 

Maynard came home with 3 elves, Snap, Crackle, and Pop. The famous Rice Krispie elves. 

We decided to have some fun with it. 

I believe the whole point of the elf is to report to Santa every night whether the child has been naughty or nice. My kids completely don't get that part because they know Santa isn't real, but I wished it worked. 

Basically, we have 3 elves that wreck havoc in our house right before Christmas. My kids love everything about it. Sometimes they get really mad and upset at what the elves do to them, but yet they can't wait for the next to day to see what happens. They wake up as early as possible and run through the house to see what happened during the night. 

This year the elves showed up 12 days before Christmas. Last year they were here a whole month and it exhausted me. I was so glad they didn't arrive until later this year. 

These are not in order by day that they actually happened, but I'll explain each day in case you can't tell what's going on. 

1) snowmen with toilet paper and cotton balls

2) they caught the stomach virus from the kids

3) brought kids a treat on their 1st day there

4) took the last of the cinnamon rolls

5) used the rest of their salt dough and made a pizza out of it (Amelia was not happy) 

6) acted like shepherd boys in the nativity scene

7) wrote Merry Christmas with their candy from their treat bags from church 

8) put kids underwear in the freezer

9) played video games all night

10) wrapped kid's backpacks up for their last day of school (Titus was not happy)

11) made a chairlift using yarn and candy canes

12) caraousel using toilet paper rolls and scarves

Basically having the elves is just me playing with the kids, but it's fun. Josiah is not into it as much as he used to be. I may draft him into helping next year. I think he would enjoy that. 

This should sum up all my Christmas posts. I don't have big New Years plans so I probably won't post anything for that. So I will go ahead and wish everyone a very Happy New Year!!!!