Geilf deliveries are a fun way to celebrate Christmas as a family if you couldn’t be together on the 25th. For some families, Geilf gives the opportunity to celebrate Christmas on a different day, and that’s all you need (if it’s your year to work the Christmas shift, for example). But for some families, Geilf provides a second gift delivery (like for divorced parents). In this case, you’ve got to be careful. You certainly don’t want to steal the excitement from Christmas festivities, but you still want the day to be fun and exciting.
Here are some ways to keep a Geilf the Elf delivery exciting without stepping on Santa’s toes:
1) Wrapping vs Not Wrapping This seems to be a big discussion around Christmas time anyway. Does Santa wrap the gifts he leaves at your house or not? I’ve heard very strong opinions for both options! In my family, we ask Santa not to wrap them. Instead he sets up a fun, store window type display for each child. So, to make things different we had Geilf wrap his presents (he used this awesome ‘Made in Geilf’s Workshop wrapping paper). Not a huge change, but just different enough to change the feel of the morning. If Santa typically wraps your presents, you could of course go the no wrapping route with Geilf.
2) Hiding Gifts. We had a lot of fun following the stories of Geilf breaking away from Santa’s team. We didn’t want to make it look like we were anti-Santa. But it was fun to create just a little intrigue. What would happen if Santa’s team got wind of where Geilf was making his deliveries? Would they steal the presents to make sure their delivery was the most popular? Just in case, we made sure Geilf hid is presents throughout the house to make sure no one from the North Pole could get their hands on them!
3) Riddles To help the kids know what to look for, Geilf left a note with a simple riddle on it where the kids would normally have found their toys waiting for them. It said, “12 elves came last night and each left gifts in one location…” Since there were 3 kids, they were able to figure out that each child had presents hidden in 4 locations. To me, elves seem to love a good mystery- so I think you could go all out with the riddles. Maybe even do a full on scavenger hunt!
4) Gold Glitter It’s a common fact that elves love gold, right?! Throughout December Geilf the Elf left the kids gold coins (filled with chocolate) to thank them for their support as they hung Geilf signs and wore Geilf shirts. So gold is kind of his thing. Leaving a touch of gold glitter on his note gave it a bit of authenticity. (he could leave trails to follow to find the gifts, if you don’t mind a bit of a vacuuming job in the morning)
5) Elf Hat Last of all, instead of stockings, we left out an elf hat for Geilf to fill with goodies. My sister knit this one, but at Christmas time it’s easy to find elf hats and stockings that look like elf shoes- I’m sure anything elf related would due!
At the end of the day, the kids were loving the Geilf delivery, but definitely not confusing it with the Christmas morning they’d celebrated the prior week. I’d say that’s a success!
