Brilliant Ideas For Your Elf On The Shelf

Elf on the shelf is a popular Christmas tradition where the “Scout Elf” turns up on the 1^st of December each year and stays at your home until Christmas to keep an eye on the children’s behaviour (and feed this information back to Santa), and is meant to encourage kids to stay off Santa’s naughty list.

While the elf is only meant to move at night to create the illusion that they travelled back to the North pole to report on the children’s behaviour, some parents have become very creative over the years, and children wake up to all sorts of funny situations the elves are in.

Whether you have a nice or naughty elf on the shelf, our Leicester self storage team have come up with some great ideas that will be perfect for your elf!

Nice Elf Ideas

• Elf making a hot chocolate: set up a hot chocolate station and you can go as extravagant as you like, with hot chocolate packets, marshmallows, candy canes, cholate etc.
• Bake cookies for Santa: Similar to the above but get the ingredients out and make a it of a mess! You could even get accessories for your elf like a chef’s hat or apron.
• Playing in the snow: You could set up a snow scene with little Christmas trees, Christmas animals and fake snow. The elf could even be having a snowball fight or making snow angels.
• If they have a device, you could change their home background to a photo of the elf and the child sleeping! (You could also do this with your phone and let them see it if they don’t have their own phone).
• Putting decorations on the tree. You could do this on the day you plan to decorate your tree to get the children excited. They could be using a ladder to help them place the ornaments on the tree.
• Playing golf. Cut out some green card to make “the green”, and draw a small black circle to make the hole. Give the elf a mini candy cane for the golf club and a mini marshmallow for the golf ball.
• Roasting marshmallows. Give the elf a cocktail stick with some mini marshmallows on, and have them sitting next to a candle to make it look like they are roasting the marshmallows on the candle.
• Reading a book. Another fun one would be to get your child a Christmas book (or get out a Christmas book you already have) and set up the elf so it looks like they are reading it.
• Rock Climbing Elf: Put lots of different present bows or sweets on a door and make it look like the elf has climbed them.
• Watching a film: Get some popcorn and a DVD (or have it set up on the TV when the kids come downstairs). For extra points you could do a “Now Showing” sign saying what time the film will be on and provide movie snacks for the kids too.
• Got our eyes on you: Set up the elf surrounded by googly eyes and write a note saying “I’ve got my eye on you”. To make this even better you could stick more googly eye in different rooms of the house!
• Game time: Set up a game and try and add some Christmas touches, for example if the elves were playing connect four you could user chocolate coins instead of the counters.

Naughty Elf Ideas

• Elf drawing: you may have seen the viral TikTok last year where the elf draws on the child’s face during their sleep. What a cheeky elf!
• Fighting (or playing) with the child’s favourite toy. Again you could make this as elaborate as you like, creating a whole scene with all the other toys watching or just the two of them.
• Steeling money from their piggy bank. You can leave the money on the floor with the elf’s hand inside the piggy bank to look like he is taking it.
• Steeling decorations or taking chocolate decoration from the Christmas tree.
• Wrap everything in wrapping paper. You could do this for a whole room or a smaller area like a cupboard or fridge. You could even do it to their packed lunch!
• Melted snowman: Fill a ramekin with some water, and place some googly eyes on the top (they should float) and the end of a carrot in the water so it looks like it melted. To make this naughty you could give the elf a hair dryer to make it look like he melted the snowman on purpose, or to make this nice you could give the elf a note saying, “I tried to bring you home a snowman from the north pole, but he doesn’t seem to like it down here”.
• Some Minty Mischief. Get some Oreos and remove the cream filling. Set up the elf to look like he is replacing the filling with toothpaste!
• Tape prank: Tape the bathroom tap closed, and set up the elf so that he is holding the children’s toothbrushes. When they go to brush their teeth and turn the tap on they will be sprayed with water!
• Clingfilm surprise: clingfilm the child’s door and have the elf sitting outside holding the clingfilm. They should be so excited to see the elf that they run into the clingfilm.
• Broken TV: If you have a smart TV you could put on a video of a broken TV (there are lots of long versions of this on YouTube – just make sure the video doesn’t have adverts!). You could use some Sellotape to make it look like they tried to fix it!
• Eating all the chocolates: This one is a fun one for you as it means you can eat some chocolates. Get a box of chocolates and melts one chocolate in the microwave to spread some chocolate on the elf’s face. Then eat the rest of the chocolates but keep the wrappers. When setting up the scene but the elf with chocolate face in the box of chocolates, and then put the empty wrappers all around the elf.
• Run away: If your children have lace up shoes, you can swap the laces for strawberry laces. You could even hide the original laces so they can’t wear the shoes!
• Yellow Snow: spread some flower on the floor (or wherever you will put the elf). Melt some butter and then pour it on the flour. Write a note that says “Don’t eat yellow snow”.