Christmas has arrived with full force this week, here in the Den. On Thursday (1st December) the children and parents arrived a little bemused, as there stood, way up high, a cheeky little Elf.
Throughout this week and until Christmas Day our little "Elf on the Shelf" will be getting up to all sorts of mischief. ‘Elf on the Shelf ‘ is a book written in 2004 by Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell.
An Elf has been sent from Santa to watch over the children over the festive period, to see how they behave. Now the Elf has been adopted by the Den ‘Elf’ has received it’s Christmas magic. Every evening, the Elf travels back to the North Pole to give Santa his report. There are two rules every child knows when it comes to having an elf in the room; the elf can not be touched. Christmas magic is very fragile and if the elf was to be touched, it might loose it’s magic and not be able to fly back to the North Pole.
Secondly, the elf can not move or speak whilst everyone is around, the elf’s job is listen and to watch only. On the first day the Children were asked to give our elf a name. So that this was a fair process, Tam asked all of the children in the Den what they thought our elf should be called. Some of the suggestions were interesting to say the least. ‘Mr Fishy’ ‘Chocolate Cake’ ‘Witches hat’ and ‘Helicopter Monkey’ to name just a few. The names were then placed in a saucepan and we phoned Gemma in the office to ask her to come down and pick a name.
The name that was chosen was 'Elf'.
We hope the children and you as parents or visitors to the Den enjoy Elf's activities in the run up to Christmas. It's a fantastic talking point and we will be interested to see if Elf influences the children's behaviour in any way and whether he enjoys his time in the Den before flying home until next Christmas.
Jess