Elf on a Shelf

Many of you have heard about the Elf on a Shelf. It is a "game" to play with your children in which the "elf" pictured above visits your house each Christmas to keep watch over the children and to report to Santa Claus about their behavior. The elf watches the kids all day and then leaves to night to go to the North Pole to report to Santa. When he returns, he situates himself in a different spot and it is the kids' job to find him. Aunt Shell recommended this to us last year and we decided to give it a whirl this year. The Elf has been a BIG hit at our house. Olivia looks for him every morning and gets so excited when she finds him. She yells all over the house, "Elf, where are you?" and once she finds him, she will yell, "Elf, I be a good girl! Tell Santa I be a good girl!" It is really quite cute and funny.

As for the Santa update this year, I can report that Olivia has made two attempts to sit on Santa's lap. The first was with her Nanny. She refused to sit on Santa's lap by herself and would only sit in Nanny's lap when she sat on Santa's lap. Santa also visited Olivia's daycare and apparently she refused to get anywhere near him. She told us for days that she was going to sit in Santa's lap and tell him that she wanted a castle and a baby doll, but Ms. Diane reported to us that the second he poked his head in her room, she began to cry and Ms. Diane had to hold her the entire time (on a side note, neither Jeremy nor I were able to attend her Christmas party at daycare this year - Jeremy had to go to a funeral and I couldn't take Lilly to daycare due to the germs that cover that place. I think I will be carrying the guilt with me for years to come). We are going to make 2 more attempts this weekend at 2 separate Christmas parties, but I am not holding out much hope...