Elf on the CHRISTmas Shelf

 Do you do Santa in your house?  Have you heard about this Elf thing, but aren't excited about a messy, naughty Elf?  How about the yearning to point your kids and teach them what the TRUE meaning of Christmas is but still want them to have some fun and enjoy the Christmas magical spirit?  Well, we are one of those houses.  We (actually I more than my husband) love Christmas!  I love celebrating Christmas, decorating for Christmas and especially teaching my boys about the REAL Reason for Christmas.  Last year they were 5 & 8 years old.  Just at that PERFECT age where there is still Magic in the world and things are still fun and exciting.  I wanted to introduce the Elf on the Shelf, but really didn't want to put the focus on the Elf watching them and reporting to Santa. We have Santa in our house, but not the "He only brings presents to good little boys" or the "He's always watching you" kind of Santa.  Santa in our house is just a very generous person that brings 1 special present on Christmas Eve and fills some stockings.  Mom & Dad and other family members bring the other presents.

Anywhoo...back to this Elf.  I wanted to use him to teach the boys about Grace...about different characteristics of a Christian's character...and most importantly, to remind them why we actually celebrate Christmas.  I read a few blogs (which I hope to credit in this post) and of course looked on Pinterest and decided to have a FUN Elf with different teaching points for the boys to learn as well.  During the next few posts I hope to share with you what our Elf did last year and what some of the lessons were.  I'm a little organized so I have a calendar with everything I did and also a very detailed sheet of paper with pictures and supply lists that I will share with you as well.  Hopefully you will find this useful.  Hang on...here we begin!

OUR ELF ARRIVES!!
The boys don't even know what an Elf on the Shelf is.  We don't have the book and we haven't watched the movie, so I needed to explain a little bit.  Our Elf arrived on our front doorstep in a wrapped box with postmarks from the North Pole.  Inside was our Elf and a letter from Santa explaining why he sent our new friend.


I found the North Pole postmark by doing a Google Search.  I picked one I liked and saved the image. :)  I made up an address for Santa and created "labels" and then taped them on the box. The kids were so excited!  Our Elf arrived the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Opening the gift from Santa

They were so excited after they read the letter and decided to name our Elf "Turkey." This may or may not have had something to do with the fact that they just ate Thanksgiving Dinner. :) Anyway, it proved to be a great name.

Here is a copy of our letter that Santa brought...

You can download a copy of the letter for both a single child or multiple children with these links.

Letter from Santa - Child
Letter from Santa - Children

Our Elf also came with a little card from him.

 To download this card, click here.

Check out my other Elf on the CHRISTmas Shelf posts to see everything that Turkey did and taught us last year!

Days 1-3
Days 4-6
Days 7-9
Days 10-13
Days 14-16
Days 17-20
Days 21-24
Days 25-27

------------------------------------------

To download my entire Plan 1 Elf Calendar click here.  There are 27 different ideas here!

To download the companion document listing all the needed Supplies and Pictures, click here.  
To download all the Cards/Signs that you will need for Plan 1 click here (not including Hello or Goodbye letters). You can also download every sign individually by visiting each post. I hope you get some use out of this!!