XMAS INTRIGUE 101: Bronko & Nagurski's Pre-Xmas Letter FROM Santa

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.

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.

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.

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.

The stamp and postmark really make it. All are available via various crafts artists on Etsy.
Check out the Elf Routing Number.

This level of detail obviously isn't necessary to fool a 5YO, but a 7YO is another thing entirely. The question is: did it work?

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.)

LINK