By Cee Archer. Each year at this time, Santa and his Elves are busy up at the North Pole finishing up toys, reading lists, and getting things ready for the special night. But have you ever wondered who Santa’s Elves are and where they came from? I decided to do some research.
Elves have been around for centuries. In Pagan times the Scandinavian people believed that Elves were House Gnomes and that they guarded their homes against evil. As long as you were good you had nothing to worry about, but if you were bad, oh boy, you could expect the elves to play tricks on you. Your milk could turn sour or they would tangle your hair while you were sleeping.
I had a feeling that maybe Santa’s Elves are related to the Iceland Elves or ‘Little People’ as they are referred to.
If you Click Here you can watch a very interesting video I found about them:
Upon watching the video, I decided that while definitely related, these were not Santa’s Elves. So I looked further.
So were Christmas Elves always Christmas Elves?
For that I had to dig deeper and I found myself going back to Scandinavia.
In the Mid 1800’s the Scandinavian people discovered that the Christmas Elves were former House Gnomes who intended to help Santa Claus. They helped Santa make the wonderful toys and gifts; they started taking care of Santa’s reindeer and took over the maintenance work on his sleigh.
Elves have taken on a lot of chores for Santa and have truly earned the name Christmas Elves. Their diets have drastically improved from eating berries, mushrooms and other things they could find on the land, to eating Mrs.Claus’ cookies and pies and shortbread and drinking mulled Cider.
So while it appears that Christmas Elves did not always have this important job, they have been helping Santa for centuries now and have thus become true Christmas Elves. In this day and age, Santa would not be able to do all he does without the help of his elves.
There are no job openings for becoming a Christmas Elf as they are immortal and who would want to give up the best job in the world? But for those of you who want to be a Christmas Elf, just for fun, here is a way to become one – simply Click Here.
Have fun, keep the magic and enjoy this Christmas Season!