Especially this time of year, creating and establishing family traditions is almost like a quest. We obsessively force everyone in the family to go to the pumpkin patch then trick or treating, cram as many chairs at the thanksgiving table as possible then fight over who gets to pull the wishbone and now then the mother of all holidays and traditions begin!

Not only do we want our children to enjoy the holidays as much as we do, we want them to look forward to all these silly little events year after year and someday carry on the same traditions with their kids. Being able to tell them, "Grandpa used to read me this story when I was a little girl," not only brings back childhood memories of our own but it also sheds a little light on mommy's mysterious past!

One tradition that my family never did when I was younger but I saw carried out at many of my friends houses was the Christmas elf. There would be an elf (or for some people an angel or my fav, the Christmas gnome) that would mysteriously move around the house each night and the kids would awake to their elf perched in a new look out spot for the day. That was the gist of what I was told from my friends but a few years ago, I stumbled upon this same practice in a cool little package! The Elf On The Shelf set comes with not only a cute little elf that you get to name (ours is Max) but also the story that goes along with it to read to your children to let them know who "Max" is and what he's doing!

Your elf will watch out over the kids each day and then every night, armed with Christmas magic, fly back to the North Pole to report to Santa if the children were naughty or nice that day. It's a little hard sometimes to remember to move your elf each night after the kids are in bed so I suggest having a back up story to let them know why your elf didn't go see Santa that night! $29.99 @ Amazon.Com