There’s a story that unfolds at our house each December. It’s the story of Zippy, our Elf on the Shelf. This is Zippy’s third year with us, and he showed up right on time on December 1. The best thing about his arrival this year is that he brought along the tiniest little paper chain to count down the days until Christmas!

The next morning we found him hiding in the silverware drawer. Good thing there were a few serving spoons in the dishwasher! Even though I knew he was in there, he surprised me every time I opened the drawer.

On Tuesday morning,  Hayden found it a bit challenging to get out of his bedroom. Fortunately, Zippy had been kind to me and didn’t put the streamers TOO low…

When the kids were getting their breakfast on Wednesday morning, they found Zippy in the pantry, poking his head out of a cereal box. He looks taller than the girl beside him, but it’s probably just the hat.

This one is my fault. I’ve been making chocolate covered pretzels, and last night I left the nonpareils on the counter where Zippy could reach them. That’ll teach me!

The kids have been wondering what kinds of things Zippy will help me with this year. They remember that one year he wrapped a gift, and one time he baked some tiny cookies. So Zippy, if you’re reading this, there’s a huge pile of laundry that needs to be folded…

Our Elf on the Shelf, Zippy, is currently spending his last day on the shelf before he heads back to the North Pole ’til next December. This is what he’s been up to since the last update.

The kids made some gifts for Zippy, so I whipped up some custom letterhead so our elf could properly thank them for the hat and gloves he received.

Good thing Zippy is always very careful not to knock things over. We found him in the china cabinet on Thursday.

On Friday, Zippy watched the characters in the nativity all day, but nobody moved a muscle.

Ethan’s bedroom isn’t quite finished yet, so Zippy checked out the construction zone over the weekend. He’s lucky he got out of there before the drywallers trapped him inside the wall.

Arrr. Zippy the Bathtub Pirate!

Z is for Zippy! See you next year, little elf.

I can’t be sure what our Elf on the Shelf was up to while I was in the hospital for six days, but Zippy has been his usual mischievous self since I returned home with little Ethan last week.

Our elf must not be afraid of heights, because one morning we found him swinging on the Moravian star…

… and the next morning he was tangled up in a white pitcher above our kitchen cabinets.

On Thursday morning Zippy was on our mantel, convinced he was an angel. (We know better.)

On Friday he spent the whole day with Ethan, our glow-in-the-dark baby (thanks to a bili light to improve his jaundice).

On Saturday morning we found him competing in an air hockey tournament. His opponent was a sweet girl from Idaho. I wanted Zippy to ask her whether she knew any famous foosball players from Idaho, but he was too shy.

Fortunately, the officials didn’t notice that he was blocking his goal with his left hand.

Zippy must have decided that the basement was a pretty great place to spend the weekend. On Sunday morning we found him playing Pac Man on Tim’s Atari. (Yes, we have an Atari; no, we do not have a Wii.)

Yesterday we found him in the bathroom again. This time he put a little photo of himself in a picture frame on the shelf. (This morning the kids checked to see whether it was still there, then wondered aloud where it went.)

Last night Zippy did something he’s been wanting to do ever since he first arrived at our house last December. He strung up a zipline across our living room and is now dangling above our heads.

Elves have all the fun.

Last week I discovered candy cane Hershey Kisses — and last night, Zippy did. Our Elf on the Shelf stuffed his little hands down into the candy jar to grab an armload of candy cane kisses, which may help us keep OUR fingers out of the candy jar today.

(Am I the last one to find out about candy cane Hershey Kisses? Why didn’t someone tell me about them sooner?!)

Our Elf on the Shelf returned to our house on Saturday morning, and after being gone for 11 months, Zippy seems to be feeling right at home again. On Saturday our family went to a local Christmas tree farm and picked out the perfect best tree. During the night, Zippy climbed up and sat near the top of the tree. I guess he was jealous of the other ornaments.

Good thing we have more than one bathroom at our house. This morning Zippy had claimed one all for himself. Selfish little elf!

By the way, if you have an Elf on the Shelf and haven’t yet added wire to his arms and legs, I highly recommend it. I followed this tutorial last year after the second day of trying to position our elf just right, and it’s the only way Zippy is able do fun things like hang from doorknobs and pretend to be a monkey.

The kids came running into our bedroom at 7:12 this morning to tell us that Zippy is back! And he wrote a message with Scrabble tiles! I’m generally not a big fan of people waking me up to tell me about something I did last night, but they were so excited about the return of our Elf on the Shelf that I didn’t mind too much.

Do you have an Elf on the Shelf? If so, I’d love to hear about your elf’s return — or debut, if this is your first year with an elf. Last year our elf showed up late; turns out he made a wrong turn on the way from the North Pole.

To see more of Zippy’s antics from last year, check out all of my Elf on the Shelf pictures here. (My favorite was the night he baked peanut butter blossoms. Here’s hoping he does that again this year!)

Last night Zippy (our Elf on the Shelf) returned to the North Pole, but not before he got into our pantry, spilled some pasta, and wrote out a little message.

Farewell, little friend.

My mom emailed recently to say that Zippy seems quite busy, and wondered whether he had found any friends to talk with at night. Well, he’s an elf of few words, so I haven’t heard him mention anyone, but it looks like he’s made at least one new friend here in Pennsylvania. This morning we found him down in the basement playing foosball with a chubby guy from Idaho.

(Did you notice the score? That’s our Zippy!)

I don’t know what I was thinking when I threw away all of the paper snowflakes I made last December. I must have assumed that I would be equally inspired this year, but unfortunately I haven’t found time to cut any paper snowflakes.

Fortunately, Zippy (our Elf on the Shelf) took pity on me and cut out a bunch of snowflakes last night while I was catching up on my sleep. Thanks, Zippy!

Zippy, our Elf on the Shelf, must have thought that the photo we sent out with our Christmas letter was too boring. This morning we found that he had, uh, enhanced a framed copy of the photo. Good thing he didn’t use a Sharpie!

Last night Zippy got into a brand new packet of velvet art stickers that I had just given the kids last evening. Don’t you think he did a nice job coloring in the Christmas tree?

Hayden knew that the velvet art was in his room last night, and wondered how Zippy got into his room while he was sleeping! That Zippy sure is stealthy…

Over the weekend, I hosted the First Annual Reindeer Games at our family Christmas celebration. We divided into two teams and played nine games — one for each member of Santa’s reindeer team, of course. One of the games we played was Vixen’s Snowball Toss, in which the players tossed regular-sized marshmallows into one of three containers of different sizes to earn points. The smaller the container, the more points the team earned.

Unfortunately, Zippy wasn’t able to participate in any of our Reindeer Games, but this morning we found him playing his own game of Vixen’s Snowball Toss on our kitchen counter. And he was even wearing reindeer antlers like we did!

Let’s see a close-up shot of those antlers.

Zippy’s apparently pretty handy with a white pipe cleaner and a brown Crayola marker…

Now that I have a digital SLR camera, Zippy apparently thinks my trusty old point-and-shoot camera belongs to him! What a sELFish little photographer.

Hey, Zippy’s just keeping it real around here. December isn’t just for cookies and Christmas shopping and trips to Grandma’s house, y’know…

I thought the kids were pretty eager to celebrate Christmas at Nana’s house today, but it turns out Zippy was even more excited. In fact, our little Elf on the Shelf was so impatient that he was already waiting in the van with his seatbelt buckled when we got up this morning! Thank goodness he had a booster pillow to sit on. Safety first!

Wasn’t it so thoughtful of him to bring a gift?

After Zippy’s surgery last night, I thought maybe we’d find him relaxing on the couch with a movie this morning, but he seems to have recuperated just fine.

Hi, everyone. I’d like to introduce you to Zippy, our Elf on the Shelf.

The Elf on the Shelf is a fun Christmas tradition that I just discovered a few weeks ago when I started seeing Elf on the Shelf pictures pop up on Pinterest. The idea is that the elf spends the month of December in your home, making nightly trips to the North Pole to report to Santa on whether the children have been bad or good. But while your children are sleeping, the elf also tends to get into mischief, and each morning the kids get to look for the elf to see where he or she ended up.

Even though I’m a couple weeks late, I recently purchased an elf (and the explanatory book) at Hallmark, and he made his debut late last night. After watching An Elf’s Story last evening, Hayden wished that WE had an Elf on the Shelf. And this morning, magically, we do.

According to the book, as soon as he makes his arrival, the family that adopts him needs to name him. So over oatmeal, yogurt, cereal, and toast, we decided on a name.

Meet Zippy.