"Holas"--Welcoming Advent with an Elf

When you have kids, you get to make BIG decisions! God entrusts you with these little tiny beings.  You are responsible for them, for loving them, for being their biggest advocate, their protector on earth, their hero, their teacher.  It is not an easy task.  Sometimes they pick up your good traits and sometimes your not so good traits.  (the last one applies more towards Cody since we all know I am pretty close to perfect, lol:) What you put in front of them is what they will know.  It does not matter how much money you have, or the clothes you wear when it comes to matters of the heart.  How their heart grows is what matters. 

Christmas is one of those BIG decisions.  You get to decide what they get, how they embrace it all, and most importantly, what they take from it.  So what will my kids take from it?

If you follow me on pinterest, you know for a while I have been pinning "elf on the shelf" ideas.  I mean how funny are some of those??!!  So I bought our elf back in October eagerly awaiting a more appropriate time to bust him out and let the fun begin......except it didn't happen.  The more I thought about it, the more my heart was drawn away from him.  Cody and I have never been fans of  the "you better be good because Santa is watching." gig, so to have them have this elf that reports back to Santa seemed like not a great fit for OUR FAMILY.  Some families, this may be perfect for, but for us, we wanted them to walk away with CHRIST in CHRISTMAS.  We wanted them to prepare their hearts for CHRIST'S BIRTH, not their behavior for toys.  So as I thought more and more about this elf, this is what we came up with.  

On the morning of Dec 6th, we celebrated the Feast of St. Nicholas.  It is tradition to put your shoes out the night before (this is where our boots always are) and St. Nicholas comes and visits you, leaving a variety of items in your shoes.  If you notice, he also left us an elf and a note.

Cohen, miayla, sawyer, and Kaia~ 
Greetings great big little people!!!
My name is Nico! I am an elf... I am a tad different from other elves in that I do not report back to Santa Claus! Some elves go back to the big guy up north and tell him if you have been bad or good. I expect you to be good all the time, why? BECAUSE that is what God would want! So because you should already be being good, I report back to St. Nicholas (that's why he dropped me off And that's who i am named after, which I guess you could change my name to holas, or las, or nic... But that's here nor there) Anyway, I tell him if you have been preparing your hearts for Christ's birth...which is what CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT!! Am I right or am I right?! 
So each night while you are sleeping, after i tell Nick if you have been getting your hearts ready, I will take a bag from your Advent tree and in the morning, you will have to find me and complete your "mission" for the day. Some elves can't be touched because they lose their powers... Me, you can touch me! In fact, I love being cuddled and prayed with and I love going and doing good deeds so take me along and take my picture. I am Really handsome:) one thing about me though, is like you, I sometimes mix up good and bad. And sometimes i get pretty silly!!!! So you may have to teach me better ways to behave and remind me of God's endless love and forgiveness.  With that, let's go have a great Advent season and get ready to welcome our Lord!!! Merry Christmas!!!
~ NICO

They decided to change his name to something more original, part of our culture, and fun to say and thus "HOLAS" entered our lives.  I kind of like it too because I feel it was a way to say "HI" to the Advent Season.  This may be a far stretch to have an elf be anything relatable to Advent, but for us it works.  We could have done the elf separate from our Advent activities but we wanted for them to make the connection between Holas' presence and doing good.  One day when they figure it all out, which they will, we will still expect them to do good works.  When HOLAS appears each year, no matter their age, I hope they will still be excited about their missions!  We will still expect them to give more than to receive, to be Christlike in all their ways.  But with Holas, they still get to participate in the lunchroom discussions on where their elf was hiding WHILE preparing their hearts for Christ's birth.  When they wake up and find him, they immediately ask what their mission is (he carries them in his bag).  And a week later, they are still loving every minute of it!

MISSION #1

"Being an angel is fun! You can be an angel to someone too! Pick a child from an Advent Tree and buy them a gift for Christmas!"

This mission happened to coincide perfectly with an Advent Angel party we were invited to! (That's another blog entry I am working on)

Our four year old little boy wanted a Robot---which was harder to find than we expected so we are hoping he will like the Rescue Bot just as well!  Holas went with us:)

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

MISSION #2

Is HOLAS getting a piggy back ride from Mary??? More like giving Mary a big bear hug, Because Mary is the most amazing mother this world has ever known! And to "Celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, along with going to Mass, say three Hail Marys for all the mothers in the world."

Funny innocence here, Miayla came up to me later in the day and asked if she could take a break from praying? When I asked why she needed a break, she explained that she was on #21 Hail Mary.  I then asked why she was on #21 for Hail Marys she explained that Holas said to say 3 HMs for all the moms in the world and there are a lot of moms:) I re-explained it to her and she was quite relieved:)

MISSION MORE THAN ACCOMPLISHED :)

MISSION #3

HOLAS is in the Doll house

"Having a home is such a blessing.  Make up blessing bags to give to the homeless.  And please start a Novena for Sawyer and a successful surgery."

The kids were crazy about this mission! They could not wait to do it and it was one of those "WOW" mommy moments for me.  This mission was given to them last Sunday.  Cody was gone and I had all four of them at Mass by myself.  Our plan was to go to the store after Mass and get the items for the bags.  It was windy and wrangling 4 kiddos is tough.  When we got in the car after Church, I informed the kids that it was too cold to get the babies in and out again by myself and that we would do the bags later.  As we pulled into the house, Cohen was sad.  When I asked him what was wrong, he said "it's too cold for us to go shopping, but think of how the people that need the bags feel in the cold."  I felt like a terrible person in that instance, but I also knew that he was going to get something extra out of this mission and he did! Miayla and him could not wait to compile the bags, but they also could not wait to share the bags with others!  What is a blessing bag you may ask?  A bag that is carried in your car that you can give out, should you see a homeless person on the street or at a store.  They have various items in it.  Ours had a toothbrush, toothpaste, medicine, chapstick, granola bars, crackers, chicken salad and cracker kits, band aides, socks, body wipes, deodorant, gum, candy canes, comb, soap......

Holas helped assemble some bags too!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

MISSION #4

"FAN- Being a fan is fun! Be someone's biggest fan today! Do something extra nice for someone today without being asked.  Continue the novena for Sawyer."

Both kiddos did their mission but refused to tell me because they said I didn't need to ask.  They take things very literal...we are gonna have to work on that;)

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

MISSION #5

"CAN-CAN- Can you sacrifice a few cans? Please donate these cans to a food pantry. Oh and keep up the good work on the Novena."

HOLAS also wrote "Hi" in cans on the floor.  Very fitting for the silly elf whose name is "hi" in Spanish!

We took the cans up to the food pantry at church and they will take it to the food bank.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED 

We cannot wait for the rest of our missions and all the good to be done! HOLAS has been a great addition to our family this Advent season and we hope St. Nicholas is pleased with our efforts and okay with the name change:)

Holas is currently waiting in a bowl of tortilla chips with a sombrero on for the kids to get home! They are going to watch a movie about Our lady of Guadalupe before we have a Mexican feast! 

I cannot wait to have them back home so we can continue to celebrate all that God has blessed us with.