Our Elf on the Shelf Goodbye Party

This year, we had a little friend come to visit us. The Sunday after Thanksgiving, Santa sent us our own elf straight from the North Pole! He brought us a special North Pole Breakfast full of cookies & candy & cinnamon rolls and while Shane was skeptical at first- having never seen North Pole magic in action before- he figured anything that brings him that much sugar can’t be bad.

Shane named his elf “That Guy in the Red Costume” {yep.} and by the next day, Shane was obsessed. He was telling everyone about his elf- his grandma, Justin & me, and even the checkout lady at the grocery store. Every night he was asking me to tell him the story of his elf & every morning, he would practically leap out of bed to find his new hiding spot. So the week before Christmas, I realized how hard it would be on Shane when “Red” left us on Christmas Eve to go back with Santa.

Then it hit me: Red had thrown a party for us when he arrived- we could throw a party for him before he left! We decided to have a Goodbye Party for Red on December 23rd, so that he’d know that we were going to miss him & that we loved having him with us all month. It was easy deciding what kind of party to have- since elves only eat sugary foods, we decided to throw an ice cream party!

The ice cream idea actually came to me when I saw the adorable new ice cream cakes from Baskin-Robbins. Available in Santa, Elf & Snowman varieties, they looked like the perfect way to say goodbye to our friend. I had originally planned on getting an elf cake {after all, it was in honor of an elf} but when we got to the store, Shane wanted a Santa cake instead. It worked out though because the Santa cake that was pre-made was exactly the flavors that I had wanted: white cake with cookies & cream ice cream! Yum! {You can also call ahead to order yours & if you do that, you can customize your cake and ice cream flavors.}

While we were at Baskin-Robbins, we also picked up a couple of extras. They had a really cute Christmas tree ice cream cone that Shane wanted really bad- I wanted to get one for each of us but apparently someone else was having a party that night because they were completely wiped out of all of their extra Christmas novelties except for the one tree!

Instead, we got ice cream cake bites, which had four different flavors so that we could each have a bite of each one. The bites came in Praline Caramel, Double Chocolate, Chocolate Mint & Red Velvet.

After letting our Santa cake thaw out on the counter for about 15 minutes, it was time for our party! I put the cake on the table {where Red had appeared holding a pretend ice cream cone that morning, apparently in on our plans} along with the other treats & we read the Elf on the Shelf book again, just as we had at the North Pole Breakfast. We talked about our favorite hiding spots that Red had been discovered in as well as how much we’d miss him. We thanked him for giving our messages to Santa for us &for coming to stay with us.

&Then we ate the ice cream! Everything was good- well, at least the cake bites &ice cream cake… Shane didn’t exactly share the tree.

But seriously, the cake was just as amazing as I remembered ice cream cake being when I was a kid. Every year for my birthday, I used to ask for ice cream cakes & to this day I remember exactly what several of them looked & tasted like. They were always so magical to me- I mean, it’s ice cream in a cake. It was fun sharing something from my childhood with Shane.

Buy It: You can find the seasonal ice cream cakes at Baskin-Robbins for a limited time, along with the other novelties like Christmas trees & Snowman and Snow Woman treats.

Note: I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Baskin-Robbins. I received a gift card to facilitate my shopping experience and a promotional item as a thank you for participating.