The Kindness Elves: A New Tradition

If you’ve been on Pinterest for five minutes, you’ve probably seen something about an alternative to the Elf on the Shelf called the Kindness Elves. You can read about the original Kindness Elves here. The gist of this alternative to the famous Elf is that the Kindness Elves don’t focus on hijinks and reporting behavior back to Santa. Instead, the Kindness Elves purpose is to encourage kids to remember the spirit of the season by spreading kindness and love.

As soon as I read about it, I loved this concept because I’d really like to help my kids focus more on Jesus and the spirit of Christmas rather than Santa and getting all kinds of presents. So I decided to incorporate my own version of the Kindness Elves into our Christmas traditions and make all of the activities they ask the kids to do more toddler friendly.

I found our Elves at Target. They are supposed to be ornaments. I really wanted a boy and a girl elf but all I could find were girls so I grabbed three different ones. I also wanted them to be “bendy” so I decided to do some minor surgery.

Using floral stem wire, I first cut a piece of wire the length of the elf’s “wingspan.” Then I used the wire and I just punched through one of the felt gloves and threaded the wire through the arm, chest, and out the other glove.

Using needle nose pliers, I made a small, partially open loop in each end of the wire so that it wouldn’t poke back out. Then I manipulated the felt gloves back over the loop and managed to get all the wire inside the doll.

For the legs, I cut a length of wire and made a u-shape. I then poked the ends through the felt butt of the elf, threaded through each leg, and poked each end out the bottom of each foot.

I made my little loops with the pliers and again manipulated the wire back into the doll.

When the ends of the wire are hidden in the feet, you should end up with the “u” part of the wire sticking out of the doll’s butt. This is good; it will help her to sit without falling over.

And that was it! I now have three “bendy” Kindness Elves. They immediately started practicing gymnastics with their new flexible limbs. This one is a trouble maker.

Anyway, the Kindness Elves got right to work and climbed up into the wreath in the upstairs hallway. They were excited for Aislin and Hawkins to meet them. Their first note to the kids was a basic introduction and a request for the kids to name them.

The next day, Aislin was happy to oblige. She named our Elves Punky, Tooter and Joy. She especially liked the name Tooter, but I insisted that only one could be dubbed as such. I’m such a killjoy.

One of the hardest parts of adding the Kindness Elves to our Christmas traditions is coming up with 25 toddler friendly activities that didn’t require me to shuttle a three-year-old and one-year-old all over Christendom doing random acts of kindness. I searched Pinterest for ideas and really liked some that I found on this blog. Using what I found as inspiration, I decided to do a mix of kind acts (like donating books, clothes and toys) and things that would foster family togetherness and fun. Here’s my list of the activities the Elves will be asking the kids to do: