For a fun and easy “elf shelf” type of activity without the all the work and the weird surveillance. My kids have been loving it and I have been loving not moving an elf around every night. (Not that we ever did the popular version) I used Astrid Lindgren’s classic book The Tomten as a jumping off point, but I don’t think you necessarily need it. It did inspire some of my hiding places and I think it helped the kids figure out some of the clues. I made my little tomte from sticks– if you have been thinking about learning to whittle this the easiet project to try. All you do it make a point of one end of a stick. There’s no shaping or complicated cuts, just make a point. It doesn’t even really matter if it’s even. Then paint on a beard, a face and a red hat with craft paint. If you are new to whittling try and find some green (or fresh) wood, it will be easier to work with and have more moisture in it. You could also make the tomte some other way- needle felting is traditional and there is no reason you couldn’t just draw them on paper! I made 8, but the number is pretty arbitrary, hide as many or as few as you want.
Once you have your tomten made, decide where you will hide them. Tomte are house spirits and take care of animals so I had many of my hiding places involve our animals. My kids are getting older so I made my clues pretty hard, some of them tool a few days to figure out. You can make them as hard or easy as is appropriate for your familiiy. I also used some of the poetic language from the book– winters come and winters go — to make the clues feel like they were written in teh same sort of style. You can either hide things scavenger hunt style, so each tomton found has the clue to the next one, or do what I did and just dole them out as you feel like it. I liked doing it that way because it allowed me to pace them rather than rushing through it all at one go. I bought a little holiday game to stash with the last tomton as a reward. I used a little mushroom clipart for my clues, but you could use anything. I’ve included my blank clue sheet below if you want to use it! Be sure to check my countdown calendar on the 20th for another fun way to involve tomte in your celebration!
Download the clue sheets here (click on the image):
