Making Christmas Magical

Recently, I was asked if I could wish for anything (something concrete or something that was not short of a miracle), what would it be.  I thought and thought and really feel truly blessed to have everything I would wish for without feeling selfish.  So, I wished that every child would experience a magical Christmas.  And, I'm not talking magical in terms of getting every toy they asked for, I'm talking experiencing wondrous magical things that make their eyes sparkle and their mouths open wide with smiles.

This year, I took out the decorations, but I never put them up- I knew it would take me time, which is limited this year, and that time would be better spent with the kids, not decorating.  I decided to save my patience and free time for fun with the kids.  I don't want my holiday to be spent worrying that the kids are going to break something or move something out of place.  We may not have many decorations up, but we are still having lots of holiday fun. Over the next few days, I will go over some of the fun things we do to make the holidays special for our family.

One tradition our family has is the Elf on the Shelf.  Some nights I go to bed and wake up in a panic because I can't remember if I moved the elf or not.  One day, I found my son awake, staring at the elf because it hadn't moved.  I panicked and told him that the elf only moves after 6:30 AM, so he went back to his room and came out later, and the elf had moved- he was happy- phew.

Somehow, this year, I told my kids that all of the elves were coming over in the middle of the night for a dinner party.  They were soooo excited.  I had my husband help them set the table, with a paper table cloth and child tea set.

They drew some pictures for our elf, Stayler:

They left a sign in sheet:

We used the mortar and pestle to crush up candy canes because they use that instead of salt and pepper:

The elves TRASHED the house with toilet paper and moved around our decorations:

They flipped the chairs:

Tipped their cups:

Cut the kids' papers into snowflakes:

Drew faces on our Christmas cards:

Signed in on the sign in sheet:

Left a candy trail on their way out the door:

Our elf was so tired, look where we found him in the morning- it was such a rough night, he stayed there for two days (oops):

I only wish I had a picture of the kids' faces when they came downstairs.  The funniest thing is they were so fixated on the knocked over, misplaced chairs, they didn't really notice the toilet paper.

What have your elves been up to?