Day 13: Party time!

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t have an abundance of figurines in the house, so for this one just gather some of your child’s toys and let the elves throw their very own Christmas Party! Even better if you have some left over party decorations laying around!

Day 14: We're in trouble

Has it been “a day” where the kids didn’t listen or didn’t tidy up, maybe they were throwing toys around or arguing with each other. Whatever it is, shout yourself an early night – don’t tidy up and blame it on the elves! When good children are naughty, the elves are watching and absorbing! All you need to do is set this broken screen video from YouTube on your TV and have your elves hanging off the back of the TV. You’ll be surprised how quickly the kids will tidy their toys up now!

Day 15: Make Mum and Dad a cup of tea

The elves are in grovel mode since they broke the TV. Thankfully with some patience and the help of Daddy the TV is fixed and the elves now want to say thanks by helping make a cup of tea for Mum and Dad.

Day 16: Shh, elves sleeping

As we get closer to Christmas you’ve likely been running around to Christmas parties, shopping and end of year festivities. The elves couldn’t imagine how tired everyone is from having so much fun, they’re exhausted just watching!

Day 17: Spa bath

They’ve had some Rest and now time for some Relaxation. With 1 week to go until Christmas the elves are having some R&R as they prepare for a big week! Fill a cooking pot with cotton balls and just pop your elves in. Simple!

Day 18: Hanging around

This one is quick and easy. Just hang your elves from the ceiling fan or aircon unit. If they don’t have bendy arms you could easily sticky tape them to the top of your fan!

Day 19: Rest our magic

Depending on the age of your children, your elves may have been human-handled once or twice. Save this one for a night when you’ve seen your kids pick up and try to play with the elves.

Day 20: Wrapping practice

If you have left over wrapping paper then why not have some fun and wrap a few of the things around the house with a note from the elves that they’ve been asked to practice their wrapping. It doesn’t have to be wrapping paper, you can use newspaper, butchers paper or even just an old bedsheet. If you do use paper, be sure to repurpose it. We sent ours to Kindy the next day as the children were making Christmas scrapbooks.

Day 21: Quiet night in

It’s almost time for the big finale, so the elves are making the most of their quiet time by laying back and watching a movie.

Day 22: The floor is lava!

This one was super simple to create. We had a red table cloth, some paper plates, red streamers and butchers paper left over from a birthday party earlier in the year which worked perfectly to create a ‘floor is lava’ set up.  Lay the table cloth down on the ground, scatter the plates as stepping stones and wrap a chair with butchers paper to represent a volcano. The kids spent their entire day playing the floor is lava, courtesy of our wonderful elves, which worked out well, as we had a cubby house ever so quietly being built in the back yard!

Day 23: Christmas cookies

The elves are back in the kitchen and they have all the ingredients ready to make Santa’s favourite cookies to put out tomorrow night. Or if you’re time poor like me (or forgot about them until last minute!), perhaps the elves have already baked the cookies and have left one each for kids to try before putting them out for Santa… Just make sure you hide the store bought cookie bag deep in the bin!

Day 24: Magic Christmas Snow/The Departure

Ok, so you’re going to make a mess and the kids are going to be filthy, but it is well worth it to see the excitement on their faces. Let me preface by saying we had an old cardboard cubby house the kids loved but was very well loved, last year we were replacing it with a Whatsie play couch. Using the left over cotton balls from the Spa day, thread them onto so thin, white cotton thread, spacing them apart and hang from the ceiling fan. We then used the table cloth from The Floor is Lava (as the kids were still playing with it), placed our old cardboard house on it (under the fan) and covered the entire thing with expired bakers flour, creating a snow field for the kids. We covered the house in fake snow and powder, created elf snow angels and set a few toys up in the snow. The kids woke us up beaming from ear to ear with excitement at the snow left by the elves. The parting gift was a note from the elves letting the kids know they have been very good this year and that snow on their house was magic snow, so be ready for big surprise in the morning (when the house turned into a Whatsie couch – set up like a house!).