It's ten days since Penny and Pip, our Kindness Elves, landed back at our house after 11 busy months of sitting at the back of my dressing table drawer and a brief spell at the bottom of a golf bag, helping Father Christmas with important jobs.

Needless to say the kids are delighted to have their friends back! They first met them two years ago after I found inspiration from the wonderful Anna Ranson's blog The Imagination Tree. You can read more about the idea behind The Kindness Elves and the idea of bringing them into your home to help spread kindness, over on Anna's site here.

It's great to have them back and their excitement (mainly from Wilf) as they head downstairs to see if they've left a note is just magic and makes my heart want to burst. The truth is though this pair are hard work and the life of an elf Mum isn't as magical as it might seem. So here, my friends, are a few confessions...

1. I don't have a long list of kind activities and notes all pre-planned. Most nights, JUST as I fall asleep, I sit bolt upright, exclaiming "PENNY AND PIP!" and drag myself downstairs to find them and scribble a note.  
2. When Pip went "back to help Father Christmas with some important jobs" the truth was that he was just lost and I was too tired to find him. He was later found down the back of the sofa and quickly returned to the elf front door while the kids weren't looking. 
3. The other night that 'bolt upright' moment didn't happen and the first thing I realised yesterday was that I HADN'T left a note. Cue heading down the stairs before the kids and quickly swiping them into my dressing gown pocket. Still half asleep I couldn't for the life of me come up with a kind message so quickly wrote that they'd gone to help Father Christmas wrap yet more presents and would be back when they got back from school. 
4. They weren't.... cue quickly finding them, brushing off the dog hair and sneaking them onto the Christmas tree along with two chocolate coins. 
5. I may have conveniently forgotten to remind the kids about P+P's suggestion to bake biscuits after school this week when I'd forgotten to buy the ingredients we needed. I acted none the wiser at dinner when Wilf remembered about it.

Despite my failings the kids are absolutely clueless and the magic that these two bring is, to them, truly believable. When I couldn't find Pip the other day I remembered Wilf asking if he could take him to bed with him that night. When I crept in to his room I found Pip safely tucked inside his bed guard pocket. Christmas and magic through the eyes of a four year old is simply the best! 

Something I have managed to get right is to find the perfect elf size tiny tree to welcome them back to our home. This miniature tree from Bloom & Wild arrived just a few days before Penny and Pip and we had great fun decorating it together. The kids were amazed to find "a TREE!" inside the letterbox box and we took great delight in hanging the baubles and lights that came with it. Severe restraint was required to stop myself from evenly distributing them once they'd first finished with it (obvs restraint went out the window before taking these photos!) You can find a few varieties of these lovely trees, along with their full Christmas collection of blooms, on the Bloom & Wild site here.

In a bid to avoid the late night note writing, I sat down with the kids last night and we wrote notes of 'kindness spreading' activities to put in our DIY calendar from Cotton Twist. Anwen wasn't that fussed and just ran off with the envelopes, glitter tape and attempted to grab the scissors. But when I asked Wilf to come up with suggestions his first response was, "I know Mummy, let's give some toys to children that don't have any." That's my boy! We did this last year with Penny and Pip and it's stuck with him all year.

So whilst I might not be the most organised elf Mum, I know that by welcoming these two into our home we're creating moments that will stay with the kids for a lifetime. Most importantly though, they're leaning ways of spreading kindness and love and that, for me, is the very best kind of magic.