Christmas Elf Ideas Kit: 24 Five-Minute Nights, No Mess + Kindness Notes (Printable, Fillable + App)

Description

Twenty-four nights, planned. Five minutes each. Nothing to clean up.

Hey, y’all. It’s ten o’clock at night in December. The kids are finally down, the kitchen is mostly clean, and you are halfway up the stairs when it hits you: the elf hasn’t moved.

I have stood in that hallway. I have scrolled past the ideas that need a bag of flour on the counter, a bathtub full of marshmallows or a glue gun at midnight, and I have thought, I just need somebody to tell me what to do tonight, and I need it to take five minutes.

So this is that. Every night of December is decided before December starts. You print once in November, cut in front of a Christmas movie, and drop each night’s pieces in a numbered envelope. At ten o’clock you open tonight’s envelope, set the scene, prop the note and go to bed.

What it is

A 43-page printable kit for your Christmas elf: 24 planned nights for December 1 through 24, each with its set-up steps, the elf’s note and a printed prop, plus everything you need for the nights that don’t go to plan.

What it is not: a mess. No flour, no glitter, no syrup, nothing to scrub off the counter in the morning. And no threats: in this kit the elf only ever catches your children being kind.

What is inside

• The 24 Nights at a Glance — the whole month on one page, ready to tick off.
• The One-Time Gather List — everything the 24 nights use, in one place. You own nearly all of it already.
• 24 night pages — movie night, a cocoa stand, a toy checkup, a campout, a paper airplane, a snowflake studio, a race day and more, each with “you need,” “set it up” and the elf’s note.
• Seven kindness nights — the Kindness Mailbox, the Giving Box, the Wrapping Station and four more, so the month adds up to something.
• The prop pages — a luggage tag and tiny passport, a popcorn box and tickets, a fold-up mailbox, elf-size books, a tent, a cape and mask, a newspaper and more. Most take about three to five minutes with scissors.
• The Kind Elf Deck — twelve small kindness missions you can swap in for any night.
• Eight “Why I Didn’t Move” notes — for the morning it’s 6:04 and the elf is exactly where it was.
• The 60-Second List — no props, no note. For the night you have nothing left.
• Twelve signs, the Arrival Letter, two goodbye letters (one classic, one to set beside the nativity if your family keeps Advent), four Advent Sunday notes, and a page for letting your oldest in on it.

Printable, fillable and an app — all three, one price

Print it and write by hand, or open the fillable PDF and type your elf’s name once: it fills in on every page the elf signs, and your children’s names carry across all three letters. The app comes free with your purchase. It’s called December Plans on purpose, so a curious reader over your shoulder sees a calendar and nothing else: tonight’s plan, a month of tick-offs, an “I have 60 seconds” button and every letter ready to copy or print. The link is in your Start Here page.

Before and after

Before: ten o’clock, a phone in your hand, and twenty minutes of searching for something clever that won’t make a mess.

After: one envelope, five minutes, and a child who comes running in the morning to tell you what the elf did.

“We’ll forget a night. We always do.”

Everybody does. That is why the excuse notes and the 60-Second List are in here. Out of order is fine, skipping is fine, and a child who finds a “why I didn’t move” note thinks the elf is funnier than ever. Nobody at your house is keeping score, and neither is the elf.

Who is writing this

I am Robin — a mom of four and a grandmother of seven, in Florida, and I have done a lot of Decembers with a lot of children in the house. Everything I make is the thing I actually needed at the time, built so it works on a Tuesday night and not just on paper.

The details

$9. Instant download — the 43-page printable PDF, the fillable PDF and a Start Here page with your app link, delivered the moment you buy. Print it as many times as your family needs. A note for families with little ones under three: some props are small, so set the scene up high. Digital products are final sale; if you have any trouble downloading, email me and I will get you sorted.

You don’t have to be a perfect mom. You just have to keep the fire going.