The story of Nick, our Elf...

Back in the fall sometime, I don't remember exactly when, a friend mentioned this Elf thing. I didn't take too much notice to it...looked it up, thought it was cute but it just wasn't in our plans.

Until....

...we walked into Target one day and saw the endcap with the all of the Elves.
Our son asked what it was all about and so I told him what I knew and he thought it was a great idea...
and so we adopted our Elf on the Shelf.....

We read the book with our Elf and found out that he didn't have a name (or get his magic) until our child/family gave him his name......and our son thought the name, Nick, would be perfect.

What happened the next few weeks became a fun daily game of hide and seek with Nick...you see, the whole idea is that the Elves go back every night to the North Pole to report on their children directly to the big man, the head Elf himself, The Boss.....Santa Claus. They report on the good, the bad, even the ugly if necessary and hopefully there will be more good so that those children don't get coal instead of presents. When they come back - the little buggers hide - somewhere different most of the time, even though once in awhile they get to liking a certain spot. Some of them even get into Elf mischief and do things in homes...making messes being the big one...not all do, but there are some spirited ones that get into things.

There are a few rules that must be followed:
1) The biggest rule of them all - the kids cannot touch their Elf.
2) The Elf cannot talk to their child or children.

The kids are allowed to talk to their Elf, send messages to Santa, secrets, add things to their lists. They just aren't allowed to touch.
There was an adorable TV special and a video to buy and even a plush Elf for the kids to hold and love, but its the traveling Elf that is the most important. There was a Facebook page for posting pictures and for sharing the fun and my did those Elves get into mischief...flour fights, snow angels, teepee-ing trees and rooms, there were even reports of toilets being wrapped in christmas paper and ribbons (in one case - ALL of the toilets in the home) and in the case of that same home on Christmas morning, not only were all of the toilets wrapped up but ALL of the kids presents were taken from under the tree and hidden around the house!

Our Nick was not too naughty thankfully....and he left special presents for The Red Ranger on Christmas morning - an Elf ornament, polar bear christmas pj's bottoms and a grey pj top and black slippers for our son to remember him.

The other rule (which is bent quite a bit, including here) is that the Elves return with Santa on Christmas Eve. Our Nick has stayed with us past Christmas but tonight...
...on New Year's Day Night,
Nick,
will return to Santa and his family and friends.
Nick, has already informed me that he will return soon, our son's birthday is at the end of February, and then he will go back again...maybe to return again during the summer for the shore.....

We have really enjoyed having Nick in our home, we are going to miss looking for him each day. He's added to the magic of the season, kept it alive for another year (our son is 8), who knows how long he will be with us. As long as our son believes.....

Enjoy some of our pictures, I'll be adding a permanent page soon of Nick's days with us but for now...we just had to share the story of .......Nick, our Elf on the Shelf.......