Meet Oliver. And you can’t really see him, but his colleague Buddy is in the background. These little guys are helping us get started with Advent. Another hair-brained idea of mine that merges “Elf on the Shelf” with an Advent calendar. For each day of Advent, these guys will appear somewhere in the house with gag gifts for the kids. Admittedly, my kids are too old for this. Heck, they know it and I know it. But they are humoring me. I just think these little elves and the idea behind them are so cute. My real intent is for the boys to pass these on to their own kids one day. But since that won’t be happening for a looooooong time (hopefully), we can have some fun right now.