Elfing Around

December arrived, and with it our Elf on the Shelf, "Barrigade." This is our third year celebrating the holiday season with the daily antics of our silly elf, and just as last year I'm wondering if this will be our last. Little Man is now 11 years old and will be headed for Middle School in the summer, and well, how long can you actually keep on believing in a world that bares it all all the time?

So far, so good. There was some empirical testing (he secretly touched the elf only to find out he was still moving through the house and committing his silly pranks at night - results of this test are, as of yet, inconclusive ... heh. Besides, we 'believe' that if you stop believing in Santa or, in my German case, the Christkind, you will only receive socks and underwear as presents) but he was and is still pretty excited to find the elf in the morning.

Husband and I enjoy coming up with crazy ideas to make finding our little elf fun to start off the day. Mind you, we have never used him as a parenting tool and/or in-house creepy stalker secret agent - we have fun with it, and leave the rest to Little Man's imagination.

So here are a few shots of our elf from this year - more to follow! Enjoy!

Rough trip back from the North Pole 

or feeling sympathetic to Little Man's minor foot surgery?

Playing Little Man's least favorite game with Enderman

Worst cookies ever - Do not feed (milkbones) to Santa!

Catching up on the chocolate advent calendar for Little Man - yes, he stole a piece of chocolate when Little Man wasn't up-to-date on opening his advent calendar. Bad elf!

A Little Bit Of Christmas

Thanksgiving zip-zoomed right by, and 'ere we realized Christmas came to town! Life has been busy at the Little Old House, not so much with home improvement projects but rather with cleaning up and hiding all of the signs of a 'work in progress' ie random tools, screws, nails, sanding paper, paint cans, brushes, and more and cleaning the house to prepare for the arrival of family staying with us over the holidays.

One by one the holiday decorations are going up: first the door wreath gets a new look, and then, slowly, it spreads through the house, adding lights here, an ornament there.

A traditional Advent wreath takes up the place of honor on the dining room table (and gets moved around a lot because the dining room is more of a living room/ family room for us - we hang out here a lot, crafting away, doing homework, and eat).

Frosted glass and glittering snowflakes create the illusion of a winter wonderland and yet, this year, winter has been surprisingly mild. Sure, we had a few cold spells, with temperatures even dipping into the low 30s but right now we are safely back to shorts and t-shirts. (And there was much rejoicing!)

While I was born, grew up and spend the first 30 years of my life in Germany, I do not miss the cold. Nor do I need cold weather to get all excited over Christmas. No, Sireeeee, no snow, no freezing temperatures for me, thank you veeeeery much!

Snow is highly overrated. Christmas is all in the lights, the sparkling ornaments, the fun of finding and hiding away the perfect gift, the spicy sweetness of all things Cinnamon. And marzipan. Cannot - must not - forget marzipan! 

And the elf.
Barrigade is back for another year of elfcapades and is still well-loved and admired by the Little Man. Every year I keep worrying/wondering if this will be the last year he believes, and I cherish every chance I have making it last.

Try hiding your elf in the freezer with an empty cup of ice cream - that'll do it ;)

More Elfcapades

 Barrigade, newspaper and tape - What could he possibly do with that?

 Tape over Little Man's bedroom door, of course!

 Ahem .... balloon adventure

 Such a clever elf - he helped wrap presents!

Beards are for Santas! Elves obviously favor a clean shave

This is our second year with the elf and just like last year, Christmas comes with a bitter-sweet good-bye for Little Man. He thoroughly enjoys B's elfcapades and pops out of bed  early in the morning to find out what our elf has been up to, and so saying good-bye often comes with a few tears. I promise you he's already counting the days until next year when 'Barrigade' arrives bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on December 1.

Elfing around the Christmas tree

I can't quite believe that Christmas is over already and that it will be another year until we find our trusted elf "Barrigade" wring mischief about the house again. Here are a few more pictures of this year's adventures and pranks

 Cozying up with the Skylanders.

 B. leaving notes using 'Oliver', the restored 1917 typewriter.

 Cookies!!!

 Gett

 

 Traveling to and fro the North Pole is tiring work!

 Super Barrigade!

Playing Knight in Shining Armour!

B is back!

Finally, the wait is over!
Barrigade, Little Man's beloved Elf on the Shelf, is back and has been causing mischief all over our Ugly Duckling House since his arrival on December 1.

Just like last year he's been hamming it up for the camera while causing mischief, and we're happy to share his antics with you!

He discovered that there are sweet treats hidden in Little Man's Advent
calendar and taste-tested a piece ...

... before long he found the deer candle holder and went for a ride. We think it must
have reminded him of Santa's reindeers.

 He was curious about Little Man's music collection and snagged his mp3 player
to spend the night listening to music.

 Then he got into trouble. We still don't know who to suspect of locking him into a jar ...

... and after escaping (we opened the lid so he could climb back out) , he painted a sweet little painting for Little Man.

We can't wait to see what else he will be up to until Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

 Finally! It's that time of the year again.
As of December 1, the Christmas Season has officially arrived at the Ugly Duckling house. Throughout the coming weeks, I'll be adding little bits of Christmas and Winter decor here and there. It's a slow but steady process with lots of old-time favorites making their annual appearance and a few new items shining for the first time.

The first thing I changed, of course, was our front door wreath. Nothing better to herald the season and to give you a first taste of what to expect inside!

 This year I kept it simple, picking up on the bird and nature theme we seem to have going in the dining room. I just couldn't resist picking up this cute chubby bird with its sparkly pine cone wings and snow white belly. So stinkin' cute!
I have gobs of those soft brassy sparkling snowflakes I love to sprinkle all over the house - their warm sparkle and filigree shape tickles me pink. You can find them for very little money (less than $3 for a box of 12) at W-mart and even pick up their buddies like snowmen, etc. in other colors

 The next thing to be decorated was the fireplace mantle. Once you set foot into our vestibule it's the first thing your eye is drawn to. Now more than ever after I added the lit pine garland, and sparkly snowflakes!
I picked up a very pretty, pale pink and white poinsettia at the blue box, kept the stack of vintage books and vintage typewriter and added our Christmas-Countdown chalk board to make everything look a bit less serious. If you look closely, you can spy our elf on the shelf "Barrigade" on his first day this year.

 More lights!
The diningroom came next!
Every year I create an Advent calendar for Little Man, and we have had this particular one for the last four or five years. It's a real classic: I sewed up 24 little bags, hand numbered them and each year I fill them with little goodies (chocolate, candy, etc) and toys (LEGO mini-figures work great as well as stickers, pencils, etc.) and little notes suggesting Christmas-type activities from "drive through the neighborhood looking at lights" to "take photos wearing Santa hats."

 In the windows I hung pine wreaths with sprigs of holly with white berries and 'snow-covered' pine cones. Then I discovered those beautiful glass ornaments at W-mart featuring this little glassine bird print suspended inside the glass orb. It has a frosty frozen beauty to it, and I love it to bits! Not to mention it picks up on the pattern of the dining room curtains. Woot!

Just in time for the first of Advent I managed to put together our advent wreath. Again sparkly snowflakes make an appearance along with a few other of my Christmas staples.

We love it cozy and traditional with a little bit of glitz and sparkle and some rustic elements thrown into the mix. What's your Christmas flavor?

More elfing around

Buying the elf on the shelf was the best thing I did this holiday season. Husband and I have been having too much fun thinking up little impish deeds every evening and Little Man has the greatest of times searching and finding the little doll every morning. He gets a bit choked up thinking that in only a few more days he won't be waking up to find our elf "Barrigade" has been secretely ...

decorating and hanging out in the dining room chandelier

putting up our stockings

reading comic books with Bima

making s'mores in the fireplace

working on his whittling chip badge for the Cub Scouts

having a shower after working up a sweat traveling to and fro

The Elf Strikes Again!

Our Elf "Barrigade" is still going strong and the quest for the elf first thing in the morning has grown into a fun routine. I wrote about our first couple of elfcapades over here and thought I'd show you what he's been up to since then:

One night he became a real beyblader and battled it out with Bima and Donatello

Then we caught him with Little Man's Nintendo DS

Another night he was more of an imp than an elf and drew beards

and glasses and other stuff on our picture frames

Occasionally he can be helpful. Here he helped St. Nikolaus wrap

up Little Man Nikolaus Day presents.

Elfing around

Right after I discovered that Little Man still believes in Santa, I -had- to get me one of those elves from "The Elf on the Shelf". Target was (is?) selling them for the same price as online but you don't pay shipping and as an added perk you got (get?) a $5 giftcard, so after dropping off the kids at school last week I made a quick detour, hopped into the store and bought me a Santa's helper.

All morning at work, I was distracted by plotting possible elfcapades and especially the arrival of our new friend. There are gazillion webpages out there, if you're lacking for ideas on what to do with your elf, like this one here at Blossom Bunkhouse. Pinterest doesn't leave yo hanging either and provides a treasure trove of ideas.

Husband was very skeptic, I wasn't 100% sure it would work but Little Man's been eating this whole thing about the elf and his escapades up. He's nuts about the little guy and his antics and husband and I are having a great time staging Santa's little helper every night. (We were also thoroughly amused by some bad elf on the shelf escapades we found on the web' and are convinced the elf offers some naughty amusement for adults without children. Just sayin' ...)



Santa mailed our elf. I searched the web until I found a 2011 Santa mailing stamp picture and printed that with our address and Santa's on a sheet of paper. I stuck a real stamp on our package (Little Man doesn't has never paid attention to postage on a package) and continued the lines of the stamp with pencil to make it look just right. Little Man bought it, so it obviously worked!

Our elf's name is "Barrigade", a name Little Man derived from the word "Barricade". I have no clue why but it does have a nice ring to it.

After his first trip to the North Pole to report to Santa, Barrigade ended up making a bed for himself in the downstair's half bath.



The next night, Barrigade - true to his name - barricaded the door to the guest bedroom with toilet paper. Little Man loves to camp out in the guest bedroom on the weekend - his special treat - and so far this was the funniest elfcapade. He did not see that one coming! Neither did the husband. Heh :o)

Barrigade used the cover of the night to bake us some special reindeer cookies. He made a real mess in the kitchen and did not clean up. Bad elf, no cookie!


Last night Barricade went to town with toothpaste! Hopefully B's nice design and handwriting will inspire Little Man to stop smearing his toothpaste over the window (he does that; I don't know why) and expand his artistic toothpaste expressions beyond the occasional smiley face.

I'm looking forward to the next couple of nights, cackling and rubbing my hands gleefully.