With Elf on the Shelf being adopted in the UK, it was only a matter of time before their cheeky antics hit the office…
Unbelievably, more people search for Elf on the Shelf every year than Father Christmas (which had a search volume of 260,000 in 2016).
The idea behind Elf on the shelf is that an elf toy is hidden every day in a new position to show that they’ve been up to mischief, or have been spreading Christmas cheer while you’ve been sleeping.
In the UK, Elf on the Shelf has grown exponentially in popularity over the past five years with 470,000 searches in the UK in 2016.
From an office point of view, it’s a good opportunity to spread some festivity and to engage with employees. It’s a bit of fun in the office and helps to bring teams together while making people smile.
For every work day in the run up to Christmas in 2016, our elf – Eve from Elf for Christmas, helped to spread Christmas cheer. Here’s what she got up to:
1. Pulling a cracker
Nothing spreads Christmas cheer like our Elf pulling a cracker in the office… which just so happened to be sent out to some of our frequent clients as a Christmas gift!
2. Sticker on a mouse
Did you know that if you put a sticker on the bottom of a mouse (obviously not the ball ones) that it stops working? It’s a great cheeky little prank to pull in the office and takes minimal effort.
3. Working hard
Elves have to write their Christmas lists too you know, so Eve took a seat at someone’s desk to start writing hers.
4. Designing a banner
We design and make pull up banners at Marler Haley, so we decided to let her loose with designing her own using our artwork creator tool.
5. Wrapping a gift
Our elf didn’t just cause mischief in the office, she also wrapped an outgoing parcel for a customer. We even said that if they sent us a photo of their wrapped parcel that they’d get it for free!
6. Hanging around
Eve the elf loves to climb and she was found one morning hanging off of one of our banners. She was most likely trying to take it down!
7. Oh No! My chair has no air!
There’s nothing more delicate in an office as the height of somebody’s chair. It takes weeks to perfect and an instant Goldilocks moment of ‘Someone’s been tampering with my chair’ when you notice it’s not quite right. Well, Eve thought she’d get up to a bit of mischief by making the chairs more suitable for her height.
8. A message from Santa
Our mischievous elf sent a video, courtesy of PNP to people to tell them if they were on the naughty or nice list this year. It raised a few smiles and is a great free tool as you can add your own images to personalise.
9. Snowflake invoices
Crafting is an elf’s best friend. Eve decided to cut up a few invoices lying around the office into snowflakes… Luckily she found a few fake ones to scare the accounts team into thinking she’d done something really naughty!
10. Jelly stapler
A timeless classic, putting a stapler in jelly is the perfect mischievous prank. Be warned, nothing escapes the jelly!
11. Snowball fight!
With a few stress balls lying around the office, Eve decided to have a snowball fight!
12. Just in time
Is that really the time? The clock was changed to Lapland time (she carefully explained that she would have changed it to North Pole time but as it’s at the pole, they don’t adhere to one time).
13. Crayons for the day…
One day she replaced someone’s pens with crayons, after all, it’s much more fun to colour for the day than work right?
14. Photocopier
Thinking it was a sunbed, Eve decided to catch some rays in the office photocopier.
15. Post it noted screen
The only way to spread Christmas cheer is to shout it loud for all to hear. Or, in Eve’s case, to write it on a computer screen covered in post it notes.
16. In a tangle
Eve loved listening to all of the phone calls we’ve had in December and was found in a tangle.
17. Fashion-a-bubble
Wearing the latest trends, Eve strutted around the office in her new outfit made of bubble wrap.
18. Leaving do
It would have been wrong to have had Eve spend so much time with us without hosting a leaving ceremony – a staple ingredient in any office environment. As a parting gift, she was given a candy cane and a white chocolate mouse.
