Mr. Christmas Tree Jingle

I always thought that Elf on the Shelf looked like so much fun, but I never could see us adopting a tricky little Elf that is going to make more messes for me to clean up.  Don't get me wrong, I love seeing all the pictures of these little Elves and the creative mischief they get into!  For our family we really strive to do character building activities and that's when I started to think that the Elf might just be able to help us out with that!

Santa must have read my mind because yesterday, an Elf showed up!!  The Princess was excited but a little leery at first.  (Is four when you start to lose your belief in magic already?  Boy I hope not.)  But when her little friend came over and started talking about her own magic Elf that really got her excited!  She went to bed super quick last night just to look for Mr. Christmas Tree Jingle the next morning. Mr. Christmas Tree Jingle.  Jingle for short. What a great name, right?  Reminds me of a preschooler of mine whose mom was having a baby and she desperately wanted to name her Snowflake Cupcake!  Ah, four year olds.  Love them.

So just where did Mr. Christmas Tree Jingle end up?  Keep checking the blog as I will be adding pictures all through December!

Day 1:

Mr. Jingle was all set up and ready to make Christmas cards!  He had on his paint smock and had all the supplies we needed.  How fun!  

He had a note that said, Let's make cards for our friends

I'm not sure how much time Mr. Jingle thinks I have, but those cards took all morning!  But it was so much fun.  Hammie helped too, but I was too busy helping her to get a picture!

Our finished products.  Sorry family, you are seeing your cards already!

I am loving fingerprint art!  The whole family got involved with our Reindeer card.

I let The Princess do whatever she wanted with some cards for her friends

Day 2:

Mommy has not had time to wrap our Christmas books for Advent so Mr. Jingle did it!  We found him sleeping in the dollhouse this morning.

He left another note that said:  Because you read such nice stories to me I stayed up late wrapping your books like you wanted.  I really like your Elf house. 

Mr. Jingle had wrapping paper stuck all over him, The Princess got a big kick out of this!

Last night we found The Princess reading to her Elf.  And it seems that Mr. Jingle really appreciated it!

Day 3:

Mr. Christmas Tree Jingle put the girls' stockings up and put a little treat inside!

What a helpful little elf!

Day 4:

We found Mr. Jingle sitting with a Gingerbread friend and he had a Gingerbread joke for us!

What kind of sheets does a Gingerbread man use?   

Cookie Sheets!

Day 5:

We found Mr. Jingle taking a Marshmallow Bath this morning!

Day 6:

Mr. Jingle wants to bake cookies and watch a Christmas movie! In his note he mentioned something good he saw The Princess do yesterday and sent well wishes for Hammie who's not feeling well.

Day 7:

Mr. Christmas Tree Jingle must have made friends with our Jelly Belly ornaments! 

 He made a swing of his own!

Day 8:

Mr. Jingle built a snowman and bundled up while he waited for us to find it!

Day 9:

We found Mr. Jingle with the girls' piggy banks!  He left us a note encouraging us

to take some change to donate on our shopping trip today.  Spreading Christmas Cheer!

By the way, it was a little discouraging to find no places to donate change in the 3 stores we went to!  

We might have to wait for the weekend to find a Salvation Army bucket, but the girls are ready with their donation money!

Day 10:

It is Daddy's birthday today!

 Mr. Jingle decorated for us!  Looks like he had a bit of trouble though.

Day 11:

Today we found Mr. Jingle snuggled up with a Ninja Turtle and Muno.  

He labeled some baskets and left us a note telling us that Santa Clause is coming to town, and we 

should make room for our new toys by donating some of our gently loved ones!  The Princess can harldly wait!

Closer to Christmas we were too busy to keep up with Mr. Jingle on the blog!!  But I will share some of our favorite days with you.

Mr. Jingle left us Jokes all around the house!!   This was by far a favorite for The Princess!

Hammie loved that Mr. Jingle was reading a story to a bunch of our figures!!

After The Princess wasn't feeling well, we found Mr. Jingle under the weather too!

We found Mr. Jingle sleeping on our craft supplies!

The night before Mr. Jingle had to return to the North Pole he had collected all of the Santa's from around the house!

On Christmas Eve we found Mr. Jingle with a note telling us Santa would be coming and it was time for him to return home to the North Pole. . . until next year!  He also brought us a special movie to watch that day.

I wasn't sure how I would like doing "Elf on the Shelf", but since he was only a nice Elf and had our girls excited about doing nice things for others it worked out very well.  I knew it was a success when The Princess even got a little teary eyed when it was Mr. Jingle's last day!