Do you have a Scout Elf who comes from the North Pole to make sure your kids are behaving ? We’ve had our elves for a few years now and built up a stack of mini props so they can make the kids laugh each morning. My kids are now 12 and 13 so unfortunately don’t believe in all the Christmas magic that they used to. Thankfully they haven’t told me explicitly yet, so we are still having fun with our elves!

I love that our Christmas traditions have changed whilst the kids have grown up. Whilst we no longer read through our 24 Christmas books during Advent, or go and visit Father Christmas in a grotto somewhere, we do go out and look at the Christmas lights when it’s dark, and sit and watch a Christmas film together whilst munching treats I’ve bought for my gingerbread gift guide.

Rick Roll Elf on the Shelf

This year our elves have brought themselves into the digital age and succeeded in rick rolling the kids. My teen just loves rick rolls, or at least, loves to rick roll others. We thought it would be fun to turn the tables and rick roll him!

It was really easy to set up a QR code, linking it to a Rick Astley video on YouTube.

Then we printed out the QR code and left it with the elves sitting next to it.

When the teen came down in the morning he did not suspect, scanned the QR code on his phone and was taken straight to the music video! This was a lovely quick and easy Rick Roll Elf on the Shelf activity.

Elf on the Shelf Pokemon card

This year we’ve also made an Elf on the Shelf Pokemon card. My 12 year old is a huge Pokemon fan so ths one really made her smile. We cut out the picture so the Elf could pop his face through the gap.

Make your own AI Disney Pixar Elf on the Shelf movie poster

We also jumped on the trend of using AI to generate a Disney Pixar Elf on the Shelf movie poster featuring the kids and their Elf. It took a few attempts to get it right but it was so much fun. You can use Microsoft Bing Image Creator for free and try typing different prompts. We found that this worked for us “Disney Pixar inspired movie poster. The title should be [name of child/children]. The main character is a 13 year old boy with brown hair and blue eyes and his 12 year old sister who has blue eyes and blond hair. He holds an Elf whilst she has a Bichon Frise dog.”

It generated 4 different posters and we picked our favourite. You can also try using “cartoon colouring image” to turn the AI movie poster into a colouring sheet.

We printed out our favourite image and placed it next to our Elf on the Shelf. My daughter loved it, especially the cute AI Disney version of our little pup.

Have you found your Elf on the Shelf antics changing as your kids get older? Let me know if you have any fun Elf of the Shelf ideas for tweens and teens.