Our Elf on the Shelf, Burrito!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we had a special visitor come stay with us, and we celebrated his arrival with a delicious North Pole Breakfast! 

Our new friend, Burrito (his name miiiiight get changed next year), came to live with us for the Christmas season, and so far Liam is loving his new pal! 

He is quite the chef and had a feast prepared for us that morning!  

On the menu were North Pole Donuts, Fruit Candy Canes, a Rudolph Pancake for Liam and Christmas Tree Pancakes for us. We all ended up eating the Christmas Tree pancakes though because Liam would NOT eat his beloved Rudolph's face - just the antlers. Kid can't say no to bacon :)

We Burrito cooked everything the night before (HIGHLY recommended, especially if you have an early riser!) so I snuck into the kitchen and set everything up while Will, Liam, and Liesl watched cartoons in our bedroom. Then I told Liam there was a surprise waiting for him, and he came running in! 

B brought Liam a note from Santa explaining who he is and kind of what this whole thing is about. He also brought Liam the book to read and some special gifts from the North Pole! (aka Target Dollar Spot). Truthfully we didn't even read Liam the book until the next day and just kind of skimmed it. We plan to do it a little differently anyways so we didn't play up that aspect. We are three days in and so far Liam just thinks of B as a silly friend we search for in the mornings and then he goes home to the North Pole at night. We did tell him Burrito tells Santa about what a sweet boy he is, but we did not emphasize that he tells Santa when Liam is being naughty or that it has any relationship to how many gifts he will get. 

Little lady got some reindeer antlers too! 

The way we are doing Elf on the Shelf: This is our first year and it may change over the years, but right now we decided we want Burrito to just be more of a friendly face who does silly things/plans Christmas activities/brings special little gifts and reminds Liam that Christmas is about love and being kind. We do not tell Liam that Burrito is watching him and going to tell Santa not to bring him any presents if he's "naughty." 

Our real message to Liam (and eventually Liesl) is that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' birth and an extra special time to show your friends and family how much you love them. The wise men brought baby Jesus gifts when he was born because they love him, and Mommy and Daddy and Santa bring Liam gifts because we love him. So being naughty or nice will not get your more or less presents. Liam knows if he does something wrong that there are consequences, but we don't associate that with his Christmas gifts. He gets his consequence, apologizes, is forgiven, and we move on. And Santa forgives too. Just like God forgives us when we sin. It's actually a pretty easy message for a child to understand! 

via

This book is great at explaining and combining the Santa part of Christmas with the real Christmas Story! 

So far Burrito has made us breakfast, wrapped and set out Liam's advent books by the tree, brought Liam a candy cane (which he conveniently had just asked for at bedtime the night before and been told no - smart elf!), and is now snoozing in our tissue box! 

I love the look on Liam's face when he discovers B each morning! It's so true - the magic of Christmas is TEN times better when you're an adult!