Joanie the Elf

Yay! We started a new tradition this year with our Elf on the Shelf. For those of you who haven't heard of it before, Elf on the Shelf is a neat holiday story in which one of Santa's elf's comes to your house on the night of your choice. The Elf's job is to hide in a new spot every morning, stay there all day long while you go about your business, and then report back to the north pole each night to let Santa know whether you have been good or bad. The fun part is each morning, the Elf is sitting in a new spot which you have to find when you wake up.

Our elf came to our house Thanksgiving weekend. We woke up on Sunday morning and Santa had delivered a wrapped present to our house. When we opened the gift, there was the Elf on the Shelf story which we read and then went on the search for our elf. We had to choose a name for our elf and Will lovingly chose the name "Joanie" (even though it is a boy elf).

Everyday we find Joanie sitting in a new spot and each day Will gets more and more comfortable with the idea of Joanie. He asks us to make sure we tell Joanie he was a good boy. And if we threaten to tell Joanie when he is doing something bad, he starts crying that he doesn't want us to tell him. It is so cute. Occasionally he will go over to Joanie to tell him what he wants for Christmas.

Now the tough part is remembering to move the elf every night before we go to bed since it would be hard to explain why Joanie didn't move to a different spot.

And while we are talking about Christmas traditions, I'll tell you about my Advent calendar obsession this year. I blame my mother on this once since I used to have a ton of Advent calendars when I was little. Every night before going to bed we would open up each advent calendars. I can't even remember how many I had but it was a lot!

In one of my crafty moods, I decided I wanted to make an Advent calendar this year. My plan originally started out where I was going to sew an advent calendar with all the little pockets with numbers. Until I realized that was a little more difficult than anticipated. So I toned it down a little and found a few fun ideas on the internet

So now we have an Advent tree. I bought the little bags and stenciled numbers on each one (with the help of my lovely mother in law) and put a little treat in each bag.

I also made one using my new laminator (which I'm in love with and have been laminating everything! ha!)

And of course we have the traditional paper advent calendars...4 in total. Jack has no interest in them this year but Will asks every day to open "the number". It's fun and hopefully a tradition we will continue every year!