Elf on a Shelf - West Monroe,LA

Argh...too early for a Christmas question! I'm running away!!

Sorry LOL. We haven't yet done it although my younger boys (7 & 9) have mentioned that their friends have one and why don't we? For me it would be one more PITA thing to do at the end of the night and yet another area for me to fail at, but I'm the kind of person who takes down the Easter wreath at Halloween so the whole holiday thing isn't my forte. There are quite a few great blogs about this every year though with some really fun ideas.

If you haven't seen this already, it's pretty funny and has a link to another blog where someone goes totally over the top with her pranks. Enjoy!

http://www.peopleiwanttopunchinthethroat.com/2011/12/over...

We started it when my kids were 5 1/2 . They had one at school . My daughter was freaked out that it would come in and out of the house while we slept . I had to ask him to go back to the north pole until the following year :0) The nexy year she was fine . We would just move him around . We didnt start pranks right away so as not to scare her . She usually isn't afraid of things . He is kind of creepy . You can get a skirt and have a girl ! Goodluck !

That is bar none the creepiest thing on earth! They used to have that elf even when I was a kid but no book. It didn't move, it didn't have a story, yet that elf scared the stuffing out of me. When I was eight I gathered my courage and killed the sucker, cut it into a hundred pieces and threw it in multiple trash cans!

No way I would do that to my kids!

I honestly do not understand why anyone would tell their kids that creepy thing is coming to life and watching them!

Christmas is one of our busiest times of the year--why would I want to add something else for me to do every single day during that season. Not to mention its creepy.

We have "tinsel" the elf. We started last yr when dd was 2.5 & ds 1. We said she just came to have fun and get us in Christmas spirit. I didn't say she watched them..
If you really think about it isn't Santa creepy? He has little children sit on his lap after you teach your children about strangers, he sneaks in your house..
But anyways, we had much fun with Tinsel. She would leave letters, treats here and there. She got in the kids play dough, played with dd Barbies etc
I think it's fun when the kids are young and everything is so exciting and magical
She also makes a trip from the North Pole to leave each child a little birthday gift

My mom kept insisting we needed one, so I took a picture of my daughter looking really scared of it at the store. So, we've only staged that with the Elf. Fun for my daughter and mom got the hint.

Jo W - OMG I am dying laughing. My husband is terrified of these things. I am so getting one.

I always encourage A NICE AND KIND ELF ON THE SHELF AND ALWAYS DISCOURGE A MEAN elf on the shelf. Christmas is always nice. Think about who's birthday we are celebrating!

I play Santa (See my portfolio). I have many families that have the elf. Last year, a dad came up to me while mom and son waited in line to speak to santa and get a photo. He said the elf's name and wanted me to tell his son the elf said to say hi. So we talked and as he got up to go, I said, "BTW, David asked me to tell you Hi and remind you to keep your clothes picked up and not fight with your brother. His eyes got big and his mouth fell open. . It was really precious. He told his mom and dad, "You were right dad, David really does know Santa."

I love being Santa. and doing good for others.

Good luck to you and yours.

The elf should be used to further the myth and belief in Santa. The elf should always be nice and never mean. The elf should be used to help you as a parent to help your child learn all kinds of things. I try and help the parents with elves be nice to their siblings, do their chores and to work on their homework.

BTW, I tell the kids that every now and then the elf has to come visit me because just like them the elf has things to learn in elf schools so their elf will come for a visit with me for school and training.

Good luck to you and yours

Ahhh!! It's only September! Too soon to think about Christmas!!!!!! Can't we please get through Halloween first?

But, in answer to your question, my friends started at ages three or four.

We started when my daughter was four. It's just really fun and she enjoys it. Her favorite prank was finding her elf siting in the Barbie car with Barbie in the passenger seat. He left a note that saud he took Barbie to the north pole with him hope she didn't mind him driving her car.

I'm with JB. No Elf at our house. And I'm so glad, because once you do it, you have to do it every night, no forgetting/getting home late/etc during the season. And you have to do it every year until your kids are past the Santa age. I just don't have the mental energy for this.

I'm not a Scrooge, I really do love Christmas! And I think some people do some really creative things with the Elf that look fun. But it's not for me.

My friends always do it and started when their children were around three. My children always thought (and still do think) that it's one of the creepiest things out there. I happen to agree and am really thankful they've begged me not to get it.

So for our house, NEVER. Gleefully never.

We just started it 2 years ago--so my kids were 5, 2, and 5 months. My oldest is now 8 and just asked about him the other night. He shows up in our house the day after Thanksgiving. I think it's fun. It just takes a few seconds to move him. We move him 1-2x/day. The kids love to look for him and really love when we do silly things. We'll hang him on a syrup bottle with a straw, I'll knock over a box of cereal or put some marshmallows out to look like he was snacking. I'll have him read books or draw pictures. I think it's fun:) I'm glad we started it! If you're on Pinterest, there are 100s of ideas!!

We got ours when our oldest was 2. Buddy doesn't play pranks though, just moves around the house to fairly obvious places and reports to Santa nightly, like the book says. The pranks, while cute, completely distract from the point of the story, IMO.

We had one and all I did was hide it every night. Sometimes, it would be really hard to find, and other times it was easy. My dd loved it!

We did it last year, our kiddos were 2 and 5 at the time. It was about 80% super fun and 20% what the heck am I going to do with the dang elf tonight? But several of my last minute, desparation set-ups, done as the kids are blinking awake in the morning, got the best response from the kids! I tied him to a piece of yarn that I attached to the pull on our ceiling fan. It looked like he was scaling some giant gym-rope, the kids thought it was great, and it took about 2.5 seconds. I also took a string of lights and wrapped it around the bathroom mirror, that was a big hit. He brought munchkins from DD's one morning, that one took the most planning.

I started it two years ago when my oldest was 3. They loved finding it every morning last year. It was a fun game.

I can't remember how old my kids were for sure, but I think 1 and 3. We don't do pranks. I have enough to clean up and do without adding that to the mix. I move the elves (yep, we have 2) around when I remember. The only big thing I do is after the kids go to bed on Christmas Eve I take a picture of the elves somewhere, print the picture, and the elves write a letter to the kids on the back telling them goodbye until next year.

We did ours last year when my youngest son was 3, we tried it the year before but he didn't get it. We had so much fun! He did all crazy things such as spilling the Fruit Loops cereal box all over the floor, he spilled the flour and left his little footprints in it. You can come with all kinds of crazy ideas! Good luck and have fun!

We started it a few years ago. We all love this tradition. Ours isn't creepy looking. I wanted to name it Pat because it is a very feminine looking male elf. But no...the kids got to name him.

I know that we will keep this tradition going even after all the kids no longer believe the big red guy comes down our chimney. I wouldn't trade all the fun memories and magic for anything.

Our elf does not play pranks. We don't threaten our kids with the forever lurking elf. Our elf just moves from place to place in the house. My kids have even written "Thank You" notes for our elf to take back to Santa. I have found them sitting next to him and telling him about the woes of their day, telling him their greatest joys, jokes and what they really want for Christmas. It is just down right sweet. None of us find him creepy at all.

Elf on the Shelf does not take much time at all. Heck..there have been times we have forgotten to move him and my husband or I raced down stairs and chucked the perky festive fella across the room so it looked like he moved during the night.

I am a lone voice on here with a vote for buying the dainty doll.

The darn elf colored the milk green, pooped Hershey kisses, turned all the underwear inside out, stepped in the butter so he could skate on the counter, took all the kids towels and hid them, stole the presents from under the tree, put sugar in the salt shaker. Okay our family loves pranks and gags so its just a fun tradition. Love that your planning ahead, create memories not gift them too much. I'd rather answer a thousand ideas of how to plan to create what your kids will recreate for theirs or simply talk about when their 70. Or perhaps we won't even talk Anymore it will all be messaging.

Started with Hooray For Elfie which is the very original. Elf on the Shelf is a copycat. Hooray for Elfie was created in 1975 or 1976. My first was five months old when we had our first elf show up with Hooray book.