When Elf on the Shelf became popular, my kids were already teenagers.  I wanted to add a little kid-like fun back into my house but without the stress of having to remember to move this little bugger every single night.  We named him Gregory, and he was deemed a naughty elf.

I knew with our sense-of-humor, we could all really have some fun with him!  It was just as much fun for me each evening to think of new ideas for him.

I also couldn’t quite get our Elf to move and stay in certain poses.  So he had a little operation to take his hands apart, remove his hat and I put some wire in his arms and legs.  It made things so much easier once that was done.

These are all my photos.  And I know you may have saw one of them floating around Facebook, Instagram and other blogs.  But I assure you, this is my photo that I took.  I made the mistake of not watermarking my photo before it went viral.  Lesson learned there for sure!

Arrival

Our elf always made quite an arrival!

Horror Movies

We are a horror movie loving family!  And it was so easy to incorporate those movies into Gregory’s shenanigans.  Below we have Silence Of The Lambs, Misery, Saw and The Shining.

 

 

 

 

Comedy Movies

As much as we love horror movies, we also love to laugh and laugh a lot!  Below we have Elf and Anchorman.

 

TV Shows

I always tried to incorporate whatever shows we had been recently obsessed with.  This was one of our favorites, Honey Boo Boo, from the season where they got Glitzy the pig.

Local Happenings

This particular year we happened to have a lot of Amish moving into our area.

Bathroom Humor 

For most kids, bathroom humor is really funny.  So these ideas could be appropriate for more than just teenagers.

Naughtiness

Just generally being naughty is a good idea.  Attempting to pull the tree down would also be a good idea for little kids.  Again, I don’t think I could have achieved this without putting the bendable wire in his arms and legs.

Stalking

There is something incredibly creepy at the thought of your elf stalking you.

Stealing

Random Fun Ideas

One morning the stuffies of the house trapped our elf and told him to go home.  And one of the Barbies was educating our elf on how he should be acting.

Having an elf has been so much fun for not only our teenagers but for me as well.  I’m sure you’ll find just as much fun in your house!

Do you have an elf with teenagers?  Comment below what ideas you’ve done!

Oh sweet friend, just writing this post makes my heart feel pangs of sadness and puts my stomach in knots.  Thinking about you makes tears run down my cheeks.  I understand all too well as just a few years ago I was you.  I was the girl who couldn’t find her Christmas, no matter where she looked.

I was the girl with an empty, aching heart.

If thoughts of the Holidays cause you to feel sad and make you want to sleep until mid-January when every single trace of Christmas is gone, you’re not alone.  I was right there with you.

A few years ago I walked into the holiday season with fresh wounds, and I was blindsided by how a season I once found comforting brought additional pain.  The holidays just felt so different.  I pushed it aside as much as I could, until the obvious was staring me straight in the face.

That calendar year had brought so much suffering: we had lost loved ones, I had lost a dear precious friend, our family didn’t get together anymore on Christmas Eve, I spent most days sick, my dog was aging and couldn’t walk some days, I didn’t have any close friends to do fun Christmas stuff with, and we were walking through a family crisis.  Sin, death, and brokenness seemed ever-present, and the raw grief prevented me from celebrating the holidays like I used to.

I put up my tree, made handmade decorations, shopped till I dropped, baked cookies, watched Rudolph, burnt yummy smelling candles…and still nothing.

I still couldn’t feel Christmas.  Why couldn’t I FEEL it?  I ran down the to-be-happy-at-Christmas checklist, put marks in all the boxes, and I still wasn’t happy.

The tears flowed freely.  Anger took place front and center most days.  I was distant.  I was heartbroken.  The times I was alone were the hardest.  In the quiet I would remember all I had lost, all the heartache, and I cried more than I care to admit.  Daily, I alternated between trying to talk myself out of it and justifying my feelings.

But underneath, I was carrying wounds ripped open by the reminders of relationships and situations that are no longer.  And it hurt.  And it was hard.  And I wasn’t sure what to do with it all.  My heart was just sad.

Christians are not supposed to be like this, especially not at the time of year when we are celebrating the birth of Jesus!  We are meant to be shiny happy people radiating His love to all who pass us.  We are to be beacons of light, not sobbing over Christmas cookies.

We were celebrating Jesus entering the world just to die for us.  And I was still sad.  Which made me feel guilty.  That guilt then made me even sadder.

It’s just hard to navigate this stuff, especially when every store is blasting cheery tunes about the most wonderful time of the year!

It’s easy to be thankful while traveling through beautiful seasons of joy, but it was an ugly fight for gratitude when suffering had taken over that journey.  Looking back that holiday season is one of my favorites because I can see how suffering unveiled my eyes and enabled me to celebrate the holiday’s truest meaning.

I realized that year that the sad, lonely, empty spaces in my broken heart are exactly what that Baby born in a manger came to fill. 

The One who was born in a dirty, hidden manger is the God who is still filling our hidden, empty, rugged places today!  He is a savior for the sad.  A savior for the heartsick.  A savior for the lost.  A savior for the mourning.  A savior for us all.

I’m going to be honest.  I wish I could give you a magical cure, to offer words that would dry up your tears and heal your aching heart.  What I found was no matter how much I tried to talk myself out of it, it was just a valley I had to walk through.  And that was okay.

Sometimes the holidays make us happy, sometimes they make us sad, and it’s okay to feel both!

Friend, if you’re hurting this holiday season…It’s okay to hurt.

The holidays bring to light the reality of losses, financial pressures, broken relationships, shame, family brokenness or non-existedness, faith shifts, depression, trauma triggered by the holiday season and dreams that keep on not coming true.  Furthermore, this year we find ourselves with the added pressure of trying to boost our morale after dealing with months of quarantine, anxiety, loss and sacrifice.  And it’s hard, it’s all hard!

Maybe your heart is just too broken to talk about it to others.  Or maybe you’ve shared your heart and are told to just “get over it” and “move on”.  And maybe you feel like you should be over it, but you just don’t know how to be.  I want to tell you this…it’s okay.

If there is anything I’ve learned over the past few years, it’s this.  When God leads you through a valley, don’t close your eyes.  Keep them open as wide as you can.  Along the journey, even in the midst of the valley, there will be beautiful blessings that He has prepared just for you.

I promise you, some day you will find joy in the Holidays again.  God has joy planned for you!!  At first, it may come in a little smile here or there.  Or you find yourself actually singing along to a Christmas carol while walking through the grocery store.  Embrace it!  Smile.  Laugh.  Hug.  Eat.  Fellowship.  And when the tears come, embrace them too.  Cry over Christmas cookies if you need to.  Be honest and brave.

Healing will come.  Laughter will return.  Joy will emerge from this dark season.  A Holiday season will feel almost normal again.

And for now, in those empty spaces, make room for the Savior to dwell.