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| Those pesky elves. |
Da-da loves the Santa mythos, esp. these days as kids need a little magic in their lives. Or perhaps a stronger cage with better locks. One of those. Magic is cheaper. Anyway, Da-da likes THE SANTA DIVERSION so much that he exercised his arts & crafts skills this year to create a little pre-Xmas scavenger hunt -- allegedly created by Santa's elves -- with said event taking place the morning AFTER Thanksgiving to kick off the Yulage. Factually, this happened this morning and worked very well, so Da-da thought he'd clue other parents into the conspiracy.
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| The assembled kit (with actual names and addresses burned out, obviously). That silver thing is actually a part of a WAH-WAH trumpet mute, with a notch cut into the aluminum to hold the envelope. Elves are all about little niggly details. |
About two months ago, Da-da secured old-looking envelopes with string ties, some red, vintage-looking pre-printed tickets to nowhere (that Da-da cut into sections for clues), along with fake Xmas stamps for said envelope -- and of course a fake "North Pole" rubber stamp canceler.
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| The clues were written on the back of these sectioned vintage-y tickets and hidden around the house, inside toys, on stuffed animals, etc.The Golden Ticket was the last clue. |
Da-da also worked up a fake Santa letter in Illustrator, that he printed and soaked in tea a few times till it looked and felt like parchment. Here's the pre-soaked version:
Huh. Santa does talk in rhyme. Anyway, the material-world prize is two modern decoder rings (Da-da's boys are very much into coding secret messages), hidden inside a hollow cat sculpture that Da-da doubts either boy has ever seen or acknowledged.
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| The Prize. Decoder rings also available on Etsy. |
Da-da's goal was to create a fun, pre-Xmas event, help the boys be a bit more observant -- and finally, to expose them to a kind of riddling puzzle-think that will help them negotiate various educational instititions and government agencies via obscurely written clues (like referring to the TV set as, "the glowing box of a thousand faces," etc.). It also kicks off the holidays nicely.
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| The stamp and postmark really make it. All are available via various crafts artists on Etsy. Check out the Elf Routing Number. |
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| One ring to DECODE THEM ALL! |
HOOK, LINE AND SINKER. Let the Silly Season begin!
(NOTE: Many people have asked for a link to the ring. Here's the actual ring and the link.)
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| LINK |
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