Kindness Elves

Our family does not "do" Santa Claus. It's cool for other families, but my wife and I don't feel like it is "for us". It's not an attempt to be more hipster than we already are. We are constantly trying to war with consumerism and self in our lives and we find that the idea of Santa Claus, the search-for-more-stuff which the modern American Christmas has become, and being good to get gifts at Christmas are all antithetical to the Gospel and, personally, feed the self of consumerism that lingers in our souls. Please don't read this as me "judging" others for "doing" Santa Clause, though. 

That being said, there are things we do miss about not having Santa in our lives: holiday cartoons...holiday movies...eating milk and cookies on Christmas Eve...Elf on the Shelf. We DO like the fun aspect of the "Elf on the Shelf" idea/tradition - albeit it's crazy creepy in some regards as well. Since we don't do Santa, though, it's out for us - or is it?

It was until I saw this blog post on Kindness Elves. Essentially, you have some elf dolls (or really, any kind of doll) who you move around the house during the season of Advent. Parents write out "action items of kindness" to hide with the dolls. The kids seek them out and read the note they have with them. They are fantastic suggestions of kindness such as making a holiday meal for someone, visiting shut-ins from the church, write a kind letter to a loved one, etc. Not only do you have the fun aspect of "Elf on the Shelf" but you have a positive message to help shape the character of your children. It takes the focus off of "me" for them and puts it on others - which, you know, totally echoes the teachings of Jesus.

I could also see this working with family advent devotions as well. The elves have the book of devotions or a page with that day's devotion. The kids seek and find (that sounds vaguely familiar...) the elves, the family reads the devotional, and they use the kindness suggestion as an action item to put what they read into practice. 

We WILL doing this, although not this year. While we believe Lily the Red, our twenty-month-old girl, to be a genius, she won't quite "get it" this year. That does give us plenty of time to think of action items, pick out the perfect dolls, etc. 

The biggest problem for us will be explaining the elves since we don't do Santa. Maybe they were sent as messengers from Lothlórien...

You can find more information on the Kindness Elves including kindness suggestions on this Facebook page.