Elf Business

That's a wrap on our elf business this year!  The kids loved it.  I loved it.  And I'm happy to report that there was only one close call of nearly forgetting to do elf activities before I went to bed.

Here's what our elves were up to for the second half of December.

Do some Christmas baking with us!

It's so cold outside - even the toilet paper is freezing!

Surprised the kids with their favorite drinks!  Chilled and ready to enjoy.

Let's go out for Mexican tonight!

The only coal you're getting this year is candy coal & exploding coal!

Elf rock band.  I gathered some elf friends for this band.

Leo had so much fun playing with the extra elves for days.  Don't ask us how many times we all played "Find the elves".  Even the cats joined in on the elf fun.

We caught some Christmas critters!

What game do elves play after they eat Taco Bell?  FART NITE.  The boys loved this one.

Road trip to Santa Claus, IN!

Play Candy Crush with us!

That's a wrap!  See you next year!

Our elves kept busy this month!  Leo told me it was the best part of his day to wake up and see what the elves were up to.  So the tradition will continue and our elves - Holly, Jolly & Chris will be up to some fun stuff in 2026.

14 Days of Elf Activities

We have 3 elves at our house - Holly, Jolly & Chris.  They arrive December 1st and do something fun for the kids each day.  They do not make messes or cause chaos.  They are cute and kind and they give the kids something to look forward to finding each morning.

Let's do a recap of our first 14 days with our elves!

New Christmas socks for everyone.

New Christmas sweatshirts for each of the kids.  They have been wearing them nonstop.

Play together!  Little People Santa set and corn starch for oobleck.

Bath bombs!

St. Nick's Day candy filled shoes.

North Pole breakfast.

New fidgets!  The kids have been asking for these forever and I always say no.  Our elves are more fun than mom :)

My kids have LOVED PEZ for years.  This was a fun one!

A chip covered Christmas trees.

They his 12 blue candy canes in the garage.  The loved finding them.

Hot chocolate bar with the cutest hot chocolate ornaments from Target.

A Christmas craft!

Do you do elves at your house?  What have they been up to this month?

North Pole Breakfast

We have been doing a North Pole Breakfast in early December for years.  I looked back on my blog and I think this tradition start in 2014 when Olive was one.  The details are flexible - date, menu, gifts - and the overall idea is the same - a special breakfast with the elves to kick off the holiday season.  I love to do it on December 1st if I can, but December 7th was the first day I could make it happen this year.  Again, we're flexible with details.

The kids were so excited to wake up to a gingerbread themed North Pole Breakfast!

I grabbed all the gingerbread stuff on after Christmas clearance last year and was so excited to use it this year.  We even had mini gingerbread ice cubes!

The kids each got some new ornaments with favortie things from the year and a mini gingerbread house kit.  Some years I've done pjs, new books, Santa hats, etc.  This year since we did it a little later, we just did ornaments and gingerbread houses.

This vase of holly branches from our yard makes me so happy!  I've been waiting for years for the holly bushes to grow big enough to trim them at Christmas.

Menu:
Christmas treats, bacon, eggs, apples and homemade nutella squares.  Come back on Wednesday for that recipe.

We hot glued the mini gingerbread houses together because that's the only way to do it.  Then the kids decorated each of their houses.

Do you do a North Pole Breakfast at your house?

Elf Business: Week 3

The elves have been busy and I think my kids are loving them more than ever :)  Let me show you what they've been up to this past week.  It was a good elf week!

1. Grinch Day!  Walmart had the cutest Grinch things this year.  I grabbed Grinch party stuff for a day of Grinch movie watching and matching t-shirts for all the kids.  Leo had Grinch Day at school so this was perfect.  All the kids wore their Grinch shirts to school.

2. Find 100 mini rubber ducks with Santa hats downstairs.  I think they were allf ound by the end of the day.

3. We made sure your lunches were extra sweet!  I added some extra Chrismtas candy and Christmas napkins to their regular packed lunches.

4. After school hot chocolate bar opens at 4:00pm today!  This gave us all something to look forward to after a long day at school.  The chocolate spoons and snowman marshmallow Peeps were a big hit.

5. We made some new friends and they took us on a ride!  Gingerbread men are fun!  I found a gingerbread ornament for each kid - a gingerbread angel and gingerbread nails for Olive, a Santa baker for Fletcher and a Santa gingerbread man for Leo.

6. Big game tonight!  ND vs IU!  We invited our families over to watch the game with us.  We had a big buffet of lots of yummy game day foods.  We cheered for both teams since I went to IU and Kevin wen to ND, but we were glad to see ND win.

7. Mystery Drink Challenge @ 11:00am today!  The kids LOVE LOVE LOVED this one.  I had 7 different drinks hidden in the box for them to try.  Many different PRIME flavors, chocolate milk and lemonade.  They had the best time sampling the drinks and trying to guess what they were tasting.

It was so easy to do!  Save a box that the drinks could stand up in.  Poke holes in the box with scissors.  Number said holes.  Make a list of drinks in each spot.  Then let the kids sample them.

It was hilarious and so fun!

8. Special Delivery!  Letters from Santa arrived post marked from Santa Claus, Indiana. All the kids were happy to hear that they are on the nice list this year.  We've got a lot to be thankful for

We have just a couple days left of elf fun before they head out on Christmas!

Elf Business: Week 2

Our elves have been busy!

Let's play some Christmas games!  I added a new Santa, cookie, elf, candy snowman game to our Christmas game mix.

The elves framed the kid's school pictures for our tree.  Look at these sweet felt frame ornaments.  They are from Target and they could pass for Anthro ornaments.

I think this was my favorite elf moment of the week.  I snapped a picture with each kid sleeping with their elf.  The were so surprised to see a photo of elf snuggles the next day.  Leo kept saying that he did not remember snuggling his elf.

The floor is bubbles!  The kids loved stomping this bubble wrap.

Elf friends came to visit with elf ears for the kids.

Is it cake??  My kids love that show so they thought this was a funny set up.

The elves were hiding in our big pantry ready to do some Christmas baking!

Off to do another fun week of elf activities!