Meet Tad- our family's Elf on the Shelf

- December 31, 2012

Have you heard of “the Elf on the Shelf? Well around the beginning of November I started to see pictures of a little elf in mischievous positions all over Pinterest and I did some investigating (code for Google). Turns out it is a book and elf combo set you “adopt” for your family. The elf is sent to your family from Santa’s toy shop located at the North Pole. Each night while the children sleep, the elf does something naughty or nice based upon how your children behaved. Now it also didn’t take me long to find a bunch of blogs written about “overachieving elf on the shelf Moms”. I quickly realized that I would be falling in to this category and from here on out will except that title with PRIDE!

Adoptions fees for these elves can add up to almost $40. As I pondered the idea, I shared my thoughts with the people around me (Tyler & my Mom). After a little of her own investigating (a phone call, followed by a trip to Barnes & Noble), Grandma Melanie covered the fees and adopted us an elf. She opened the packaging and brought him to Thanksgiving Dinner at my Great Aunt Sharon’s house.

Instantly the kids were excited as my mom read them ‘The Elf on the Shelf” book. Issac was looking all over when he spotted his elf sitting in the dining area on a shelf. We named our elf Tad.

Over the course of the next few weeks Tad was Naughty and Nice. Playing tricks such as painting snow on the pine cones and leaving small gifts such as dollar store play dough and water paints, Christmas pajamas and slowly bringing out our Christmas movies and books. I have to say, I enjoyed myself each evening as I planned out what Tad should do. However, our children are young, so I quickly ran out of locations to put Tad that were up high. As the story goes, you can’t touch your elf or he loses his magic. On Christmas morning Issac asked where Tad was & we told him that when Santa brought our gifts, he took Tad back to the North Pole. I am excited to see what kind of craziness tad will get into next Holiday Season.

Here are a few pictures of Tad from this Christmas Season.