Welcome to the Love Santa Blog
Christmas elves visiting Hogwarts!
Hogwarts and elves seems a reasonable fit, so not a huge surprise that our Christmas elves are visiting Hogwarts today!
More specifically, the elves are in the Lego Harry Potter advent calendar with Harry, Hermione and Ron. And both elves are on paintbrush broomsticks!
So, most obvious is Tinkles. She is flying on a paint brush (aka broomstick!) above Hogwarts with Harry’s help. They seem to be sharing the wand!
Ginger is also on a paintbrush. However, she and Hermione are still on the ground. Maybe Hermione wants to stay at the Yule Ball instead of flying off with Ginger? Ron is certainly watching closely…
As always, I love the fine details Lego thinks to add. Like Hedwig and broomstick shaped Christmas gift under the tree. Or the mix of a microphone and a gramophone!
Christmas elves play games offline
Our Christmas elves were playing games last night, and this morning are inviting the kids to join in!
First we noticed Ginger driving the shoe train! She is giving train rides to various Lego characters… I think the kids would jump on board, too, if only they were small enough to fit on or in a shoe!
Shoe-shoe-shoe, shoe-shoe-shoe, toot-toot!
Then we spotted Tinkles up on a shelf, playing Candy Crush! Only, she is playing it with real lollies and the hammer from her tool box 🙂 My daughter loves that one lolly had already been crushed and is very hopeful of getting to eat the game once Tinkles is done playing.
Tinkles wrote a note “wanna play Candy Crush?” but she isn’t offering up her hammer for anyone else to play with!
Have you seen any elves playing offline games they devised themselves?
Christmas elves at the Christmas tree, being cheeky
Tinkles grew overnight!
At least, that is what I told the kids. Tinkles caught my eye immediately this morning as I went to wake the kids up. My son instantly asked if she was on stilts, but my daughter was wondering how Tinkles grew!
I think Tinkles was being a sociable Christmas elf chatting to the two Santa decorations on the tree, or maybe she was straightening up the Christmas train on the tree.
If you look carefully, Ginger was close by, but it was my daughter who found her a bit later. The cheeky elf is peeking into Christmas presents under the tree!
Have your elves ever been cheeky around the tree?
Still some Christmas lights in Ivanhoe
The Boulevard in Ivanhoe (an eastern suburb of Melbourne) is well known for its Christmas lights.
Most years, the Boulevard is a very popular spot. A slow moving line of cars moves along the street (which becomes one way only for the Christmas period) while crowds of people walk along to see the lights close up. Some nights, there are musicians playing carols at a number of houses as well. The surrounding streets also have some beautifully decorated homes.
Fast forward to 2020 and a pandemic – the local council cancelled the event.
reduced lights in 2020
As we drove past Ivanhoe last night, we decided to drive down the Boulevard and have a look. Just because the event was cancelled doesn’t mean every house would be unadorned…
A few houses had a Christmas tree in a window and a few lights. So the street was pretty dark.
Except for one house with a deep front yard which was full of lights and decorations!
That house was recently up for sale. Perhaps that is why it was decorated this year as the final farewell to 60 years of the family home.
Just for fun, here are some photos of the Boulevard in previous years. Starting with the same house featured this year:
A cosy elf hiding spot!
It took me quite a while to find the elves this morning – and I’m not sure the kids have found them yet! They were cuddled up together on the blanket shelf in our linen press.
Would you like a snuggly day, too?
Christmas yoga in the high country!
Last day of school for 2020 and many people are finishing up work as we near Christmas, so there an air of relaxation and stress release around.
Our elves both found a way to relax and head into the holiday mode – we found TInkles on my yoga mat this morning! She started doing a forward bend from the splits (not a move I could master!)
However, we spotted her in different poses through the day (which is fair enough as an entire day in any one yoga pose would be tough to maintain!)
Meanwhile, Ginger was resting on top of a photo hanging on our wall, overlooking Tinkles on the yoga mat. The photo itself is of Wallace’s Hut up in the Victoria High Country – visiting the High Country, even via a photo is definitely something I would put on a list of good ways to relax!
The photo is of Wallace Hut – a hut built by three brothers in 1889 near Falls Creek and now the oldest surviving cattlemen’s hut. It is such a beautiful part of the world.
Construction elf!
Tinkles was in work mode this morning, wearing a high vis vest and carrying a stop sign.
The kids loved her little tool box, complete with tape measure, scissors (that actually cut paper my daughter discovered!), saw and hammer.
Watching Tinkles work must have built up Ginger’s appetite, as we found her in a punnet of cherry tomatoes!
Christmas elves can graduate, too, apparently…
Last night, my son graduated form primary school. As part of the preparations, he decorated his mortarboard.
This morning, we discovered Tinkles and Ginger in graduate gowns on my son’s mortarboard as they graduate in front of a Lego audience!
We’re not entirely sure what they are graduating from, mind you, but we won’t let any little details like that stop us celebrating!
Love Santa orders closed – how did we do?
Love Santa letter orders have closed to 2020 (yes, a bit early due to COVID-19 mail delays).
As always, we enjoyed preparing the letters this year. It was pleasing that so many children coped well with the restrictions this year. And we love reading of their successes and good deeds.
We would love to hear about the reactions to our letters (comment below or fill in our testimonials form) and your Christmas stories in general (again, comment below or use our share a story form!)
Interestingly. we have written fewer letters to adults this year but more to teenagers. And there seem to be more requests for outdoor and active gifts, along with books and themed gifts (like Bluey, Elsa, and Pokémon) and fewer electronic-based gifts – I wonder if that is a response to lockdowns and doing so much online during 2020?
Found Ginger!
So we finally found Ginger – she was having a nap in an oven mitt on a pile of tea towels…
All Christmas themed, of course!
Bath time for elves!
A few days ago, Tinkles was busy cleaning Ginger’s teeth. Today, she is back in the bathroom having a bubble bath…
Evening update
This evening the kids spotted that Tinkles now has a glass of wine in hand as she soaks in the bubble bath!
Christmas elves cooking biscuits
Tinkles and Ginger were sitting on the kitchen bench this morning, having apparently made a batch of biscuits!
The elves used their own mixer, spoon, rolling pin and biscuits tray, but also got out our mixing bowl and Christmas spoons so we took that as a hint to also cook some biscuits today! We made some passionfruit Christmas biscuits and they are yummy! They will be a nice snack for our last week of school lunches, if I can keep everyone from eating them all today!
Have your elves encouraged you to do some Christmas activity this year?
BROWSE BY CATEGORY
- About Love Santa
- Baby’s first Christmas
- Children’s craft
- Christmas activities
- Christmas books
- Christmas cooking
- Christmas crafts
- Christmas gifts
- Christmas humour
- Christmas Lights/Decorations
- Christmas Memories
- Christmas spirit
- Christmas today
- Easter
- Green Christmas
- Happy kindness
- International Christmas
- Santa letters
- Santa Memories
- Santa’s snacks
- Tinkles the elf
- Uncategorized
Order Cut Off Dates
Please note that letters need to be ordered before December 18 to be delivered before Christmas!
Order now to be sure of delivery before Christmas. Keep an eye on our blog for final ordering days as we get close to Christmas Eve.
Privacy Policy
Under no circumstances, not even under threat of having to fill in for Santa on Christmas Eve, will your details of any kind be given, sold or lent to any other party.