How to Start a Christmas Elf on the Shelf Tradition with Your Children

The Elf on the Shelf children's book written by the mother/daughter team of Carol V. Aebersold and Chanda A. Bell is a wonderful tradition to start with your children. The book tells the story of a secret elf who comes to stay with your family for Christmas to keep an eye out for naughty or nice behavior.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Order or purchase the Elf on the Shelf Gift set that comes with the beautifully illustrated children's book and a cute little elf that your family gets to adopt.
2. Bring the book and the elf out around Thanksgiving and read the story to your children or grandchildren and introduce the elf to them. You will be asked by the book to name the elf. After you finish that you can go the elfontheshelf.com and register your elf's new adopted name.
3. The book tells the story of an elf that Santa has sent to keep an eye on the children's behavior. Each night the elf uses his magic to go back the north pole and give a report, when he comes home each night he finds a new hiding place in the house, so use your creativity when finding new and unique hiding places for him. It is fun to watch the kids race around each morning to find his new location.
4. Explain to kids that each year after Christmas the elf will return to the North Pole to help Santa get ready for the next year's Christmas so that you can pack him away until next year, though he could make periodic checkup throughout the year to ensure good behavior.

Tips & Warnings

• The more creative that you can make his hiding place the more fun the tradition becomes.
• Take pictures of his hiding place each morning and make the elf a scrapbook of his adventures for kids to look at throughout the year.