2023 Elf Recap

I'm sneaking in one last post for 2023!  I realized I never finished up elf series for the year.  My kids love our elves so much.  It's become one of their favorite holiday traditions.  I always ask them after Christmas if they think the elves should return next year and without any hesitation they say YES!  So I'll be collecting elf activities all year to use next December.

The kids loved having elf pets to take care of for a few days!  I found these Barbie pets at Dollar Tree for $1.25 and was so glad I didn't buy the elf on the shelf pets for $20 each.

Elf kisses!  This one was really fun to set up.  

Elf Story Time.  I grabbed some Christmas stuffed animals and Christmas books that we already owned and set this up in Olive's room.  The kids loved it.

Surprise Christmas Road Trip to Santa Claus, Indiana.  We had the best day with my parents and the kids have already asked to do this again next year.

Jesus is the reason for the season.  My friend was selling paintable sugar cookies for Christmas so I grabbed some nativity cookies for the kids.  They really enjoyed painting them and said they preferred mom's cookies over the royal icing cookies.

Mini rubber duck hunt!  This was a huge hit!!  Everyone was so excited to hunt for these tiny ducks.  I kept them all downstairs to keep things a little simpler and they loved it.  They found and rehid ducks all day long.  Then they played with the ducks, sorted the ducks and counted the ducks.  I'll be repeating this next year and maybe will hide them upstairs :)

Naughty or Nice?  While we don't really focus much on the idea of the naughty or nice list from Santa, these naughty and nice candies were fun.  The sour patch coal was delicious and my kids love tic tacs.  Five Below candy for the win.

Let's have some FUN and craft today!  We made ornaments and played with stickers.

My Croc loving kids LOVED finding this in their bath tub!  We made plans to go to the zoo with friends and had a blast.  The animals were busy on the cold day.

It's MOVIE NIGHT - Let's go see WONKA!  The big kids got invited to a birthday party so I used the elves to remind them of our fun plans.  I used candy we already had for Christmas and plans we'd already made.  We had a great time and loved Wonka.

It's COOKIE DAY!  Help Mom make Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve.  I rarely make cut out sugar cookies and this was such a treat.  It was a tiny bit stressful baking with so many little hands, but it was worth it.  The kids were so proud of their cookie creations.  I think this might just stick around as a Christmas Eve tradition.  I was done baking for Jordan Bakery Box so the timing was perfect for the 24th.

And then our elves left a note thanking the kids for a fun Christmas season - reminded them to be kind, be helpful, be good listeners and be generous.  They said they were headed back to The North Pole and would be back next year.

2023 was another great elf year!