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Christmas is a magical time of the year. It’s a time to spend with family and friends and share traditions old and new together.
From singing Christmas carols, to Santa’s reindeer driven sleigh and the iconic elves on the shelf. While these red-suited Santa’s Helpers have only been around for 20 years, according to TODAY, they have become a world-wide tradition. From inspiring creativity to spreading kindness, this trend is here to stay.
The Story of the Elf On the Shelf
While Santa Claus is busy making a list and checking it twice, he needs a little help checking up on all those children. That’s where the Elf on a Shelf comes in. Appearing in early December, the elf flies back to the North Pole every night to report to Santa. While it is all done in fun, it is a reminder for children to behave before the holiday.
The idea came from a book written by Carol Aebersold and her daughter Chanda Bell called The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition, which was about her family’s tradition about an elf who helped Santa.
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The book that came with an Elf on the Shelf debuted in Marietta, Georgia, in 2005 and became a huge success. “We created The Elf on the Shelf tradition to help families have fun during the holidays by sparking moments of joy,” Bell told TODAY.com in a 2022 interview.
Many families engage in a hunt to see where the elf returned to after his nightly journey. But you must follow the basic elf rules: children shouldn’t touch the elf, they never speak, the elves are clever and mischievous but never naughty, they must return to a new spot in the house, and elves are adopted – like cabbage patch kids – and given a name.
Making Memories
The Elf on the Shelf has forged many traditions for families. Jenna Crawfield, the lifestyle influencer behind Jenna Loves Christmas on Instagram sees it as a way to get adults in on this fun tradition.
“The magic of Elf on the Shelf reaches beyond the children the dolls are intended for and gives parents’ permission to play, flex their creative muscles and feel confident that they’re actively participating in the memory making during an otherwise busy holiday season,” she told today.
Participating in this tradition also has educational benefits according to Hello. “Simple imaginative traditions like Elf on the Shelf can offer powerful developmental benefits, even though they seem light-hearted on the surface. What we often see is that children engage with these setups at very different stages of understanding,” HCPC-registered senior education and Child Psychologist Dr Sasha Hall told Hello.
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Discovering the Elf in unusual or hard to get to place will spark questions that support reasoning, imaginative thinking, and social communication while still having fun.
Inspiring Kindness
The Elf on the Shelf can also be used to promote kindness during the holiday season, reported HuffPost. Shara Arora, an executive director of two Montessori schools in the greater Houston, Texas area. Montessori schools teach self-reliance and a culture of respect and kindness for others.
Four years ago, she developed a Montessori inspired twist on the elf for her family that focuses on kindness instead of behavior. So instead of the elf flying to the North Pole every night to report on whether children have been naughty or nice, Arora reimagined the elf’s mission.
So, every morning when the children search for the elf, they find a Christmas ornament with an act of kindness written on it. When one of her children completes the act, they get to hang the ornament on the tree.
“By Christmas, the tree is filled with reminders of their thoughtfulness and generosity, Arora said.” Inspiring kindness for the holiday is really what Christmas traditions are all about.
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