We hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! All of us up here at the North Pole had a lovely Christmas indeed.
We wanted to take a moment to express some gratitude. First off, thank you to our corporate sponsors who have helped us tremendously with the cost of developing and maintaining northpole.com. So, thank you very much to our Diamond Deck-the-Halls Sponsor, Restaurant Technology, Inc., and our Platinum Poinsettia Sponsor, SimTrain! (Interested in sponsoring Northpole.com? Click here for more information!)
Also, thanks go out to YOU for spending part of your Christmas with us! We appreciate every single one of our visitors, and we are so happy that you came to visit Santa’s Secret Village. We do hope that you’ll spend part of next Christmas with us as well!
As 2012 draws to a close, there are now 362 days until Christmas. We won’t be posting on the Elf Blog quite as often over the next several months, but come check back every now and then because we might post some surprises between now and next holiday season 
And in the meantime, you can still check out all of our awesome content, such as the craft ideas, gift ideas, and Raymond the Reindeer’s adventures.
Thanks again for spending part of your Christmas with us here at northpole.com, and we wish you a very happy and healthy 2013!
Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!! As you know, we’ve invited our friends on Google+ to the Northpole.com Official Countdown to Christmas 2012 where they can upload photos of how they’re celebrating Christmas and celebrate with the rest of the world. If you’re on Google+, we hope you’ll join us! (If you’re not on Google+ yet, you can sign up here.)
Here are some of our favourite photos from yesterday and today!
Sandra B. said, “My daughters with Santa ”
Carey O. said, “Waiting for the Guest of Honor, a.k.a.The Big Guy.”
Jimmy C. said, “My Norwegian friend loves her Raymond! Thanks Northpole.com!”
Sarah R. said, “We just moved to Alaska just 5 days ago and my son was dying for us to put up our tree (it was literally the only thing he talked about during our trip from California to Alaska) so we put it up and let both my son and daughter decorate the tree. As you can tell by all the ornaments placed only at the bottom of the tree 
) We are very excited for Santa this year.”
Does your family have any Christmas Eve traditions? Let us know in the comments below!
Only 6 days until Christmas now! As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve invited our friends on Google+ to the Northpole.com Official Countdown to Christmas 2012 where they can upload photos of how they’re celebrating Christmas and celebrate with the rest of the world. If you’re on Google+, we hope you’ll join us! (If you’re not on Google+ yet, you can sign up here.)
Want to see some of our favourite photos from yesterday? Check ‘em out over here!
I guess everyone was really busy today (finishing up their Christmas shopping, perhaps?) because we only had one photo submission on the Event page today—from me 
My favourite section of my tree: photo of my basset hound, a wee julbock, hearts from London and Sweden, a hippo, and Troy Polamalu!
Can you believe there are only 7 days left until Christmas? As expected, we elves are super busy, but we couldn’t be more excited!
To enjoy this last week before Christmas, we invited our friends on Google+ to the Northpole.com Official Countdown to Christmas 2012. If you’re on Google+, we hope you’ll join us! (If you’re not on Google+ yet, you can sign up here.)
We want everyone to join in and share the excitement as we count down to Christmas together. Santa asked us to create this Event on Google+ to bring everyone’s amazing Christmas memories together in one spot. Whether you’re at the North Pole or the South Pole—or anywhere in between—you can join this Event and share your special Christmas memories with the world.
While we love all of the posts on the Event page, we will be selecting some of our favorite photos each day between now and Christmas, and we will be posting them here on the Elf Blog. So, without further ado, here are a few of our favorites from today!
Whitney D. said, “My friend’s tree theme: ‘Santa!’ Can you tell?”
Jimmy C. said, “I baked these yummy buns from Mrs. Claus’ Cookbook!”
Jennifer D. posted this photo with a “reindog.” Too cute!
On Christmas Eve, we all know to leave cookies and milk out for Santa so that he has a snack to nibble on while he drops off the presents. With Christmas cookies being so tempting for those both young and old, how do you make sure no one eats Santa’s special cookies? If you’re looking for something more festive than Tupperware and a Post-it note, perhaps this “Saved for Santa” cover could do the trick! It’s a reusable plastic plate cover that fits snugly around your plate, and it will clearly let your family and friends know whose cookies are on the plate.
What kind of cookies does your family like to leave out for Santa?
While we have tons of great educational activities, worksheets, and games in the Elf Pal Academy, you should also check out Homemade Preschool. This site is run by our friend Melissa and includes lots of great Christmas worksheets and activities for your wee ones. There is also a myriad of cute holiday clipart, all drawn by Melissa herself!
In celebration of this holiday season, Melissa drew some festive wallpapers for us to share with you, and we think you’ll just love them! To use one of these fun wallpapers, click on your chosen one to display the full size image, then right-mouse-click on the image and select “Set as background.” Enjoy!
amanda stott on Raymond’s Sporty Dream