Happy December everyone!! Nikki here with today’s post. Last year we started a new tradition at our house, one that’s kind of sweeping the nation so to speak, we received our very own Elf on a Shelf who lives with us all through the month of December. Basically once your elf arrives he lives on your “shelf” or other places in your house and keeps an eye on the kiddos for Santa. I mean Santa needs all the help he can get right? So once your elf arrives your kids give him a name and then he gets his magic! That way he can fly back to the North Pole every night to visit Santa and give him his report of the day – whether or not the littles have been “naughty of nice”.

Last year our elf Buddy, (named by my son Avery) would be in different places every morning and the kids would have to search for him. This year Buddy is feeling a little more at home and has already gotten into a ton of mischief – he even wrapped the toilet seat in wrapping paper one night! I’ve been posting pics of Buddy’s Adventures on my facebook page here if you’d like to check him out.

I have had so much fun this year planning all of Buddy’s antics and so far the kids have loved it! Pinterest as always has been a great help when coming up with ideas..here are a few that I was inspired by:

I got organized this year and made a calendar for Buddy Activities so that wouldn’t be scrambling for ideas every night…or hopefully not forget to move Buddy (yeah I did that once or twice last year). So I thought I’d share it with you here.

I highly recommend getting your own Elf on a Shelf..we have made so many fun memories with it and I know we will make many more in the years to come.

And before I go I want to remind everyone about our Cookies for Kids Exchange that starts today in the forums.

Each day in December our SSD staff will be bringing you a new cookie template to download. Each download will only be available for 24 hours so be sure to check back each day.

Can’t wait to collect them all daily? No problem! Remember you can purchase all 31 templates in the store HERE with proceeds to benefit Toys for Tots.