Hide Your Elf
Each morning, the elf chooses a new vantage point from which to keep an eye on the kids. The night before Christmas, the elf flies off one last time to spend the year with Santa until reappearing next season. Every night, a parent hides the elf in a new place.
Santa advises that no family member touch their Elf on the Shelf, but he does describe a few rare instances when an adult may use tongs or potholders to help an elf in an urgent situation. Parents: read on to learn about special, few and far between cases where emergency help will be required.
The adorable idea is that a mischievous Elf comes to visit your home leading up to Christmas, and reports back to Santa if the kids are being naughty or nice. Parents make it even more fun by setting up the Elf in funny scenes or hiding it around the house, waiting for the children to notice.
By age eight, kids begin to acknowledge the unlikeliness of one man travelling the world in a single night. The good news? If you started the tradition of Elf on the Shelf in your household, you can likely send the elf into early retirement around your child's eighth Christmas.
According to The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition, the night before Christmas, an elf's job comes to an end. On December 24, most Scout Elves say farewell to their families and fly back to the North Pole following Santa's sleigh.
Write a Letter to Your Elf
Although the North Pole may be a long ways away, your Scout Elf is always easily reachable online. Kids can write to their elf or Santa through our online portal or on our Facebook page, and one of Santa's mailroom elves will be sure to send back a kind reply!
Elves need to wait until everyone is asleep before they can move around. If there was too much activity around the house last night, perhaps your elf only had time to get to the North Pole and back, but not enough time to find a new position. Make sure you get to bed early tonight to help them out!
The story in the book, written in rhyme, reveals that the elf doll is an emissary sent by Santa Claus to observe children and report back on their behavior for judgment. The elf cannot be touched or the magic will be broken; it is a silent observer, a CCTV camera with pointy ears.
What is Elf on a Shelf? Started by mother-daughter duo Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell, the Elf on the Shelf rules are simple: The Scout Elf watches over your family during the day, and then checks in with Santa each night to reveal who is being naughty and who is being nice.
1. Never touch Elf on the Shelf. Elves lose their magic when touched by humans. Santa advises that no family member should ever touch an Elf on the Shelf.
7. Children are not allowed to touch them. Elves are very fragile, and if they are touched by human children they lose their magic and ability to communicate with Santa.
Visit Santa's online adoption center. Parents, pull up Santa's online store, where all the magical creatures from the North Pole are available for adoption. After you pick a boy or girl elf, Santa will send your new helper straight to your home.
If your elf didn't move, they may be trying to communicate an important message to you! If your elf is accidentally touched, they may have just enough energy to get to the North Pole but not enough magic to create a whole new scene in your home.
eMessage Your Elf
Instantly send a message to Santa or your Scout Elf. Each letter makes it to Santa's Mail Room Grotto, where the Scout Elves will read and sort each message, so you can be sure your elf reads your note! After you contact your elf, learn some new North Pole Knowledge about your red-suited helpers!
The first and most important rule is that you must NOT touch your Elf. If you do, they will lose all their magic - and nobody wants that to happen. When scout elves lose their magic, they can't go about their Christmas duties. This means no presents for anyone in your family!
It could simply say "goodbye" or "farewell." A trendy elf might opt for "elf out" or "laters."
As the story goes, elves arrive around Thanksgiving and keep watch of children up until Christmas Eve. Every night during this time, elves fly to the North Pole to report to the big guy, ya know, Santa, about the kids' naughty or niceness, then return to a new spot each morning.
As the days inch nearer to Christmas, families across the country are taking part in "Elf on the Shelf" festivities, where a small elf figurine is placed around the home every day to watch if children have been naughty or nice. According to elf legend, the elf moves each night.
Age: Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.
The story instructs the child to send an invitation to their elf so that he can get permission from Santa to spend the child's birthday with them. On the night before the birthday the child sets out the elf's special birthday outfit.
Do I need one Elf per child or one per household? The choice is yours. We have included two Nice List Certificates and two Letters to Santa in each kit, as these items are personal. All the other items can be shared as a family.