101 Things to Do with Your Christmas Elf by Jason Deas was a lengthy (203 pages) collection of whimsical ideas to inspire those who keep elves in their home at Christmas. None of Deas’s ideas involved a great expense of time or money. The longest elf set-up might take only half an hour. He described his own children’s reactions to his elf shenanigans yet I got the idea soon after starting the book that Dias had just as much fun creating each mise-en-scène as his children had in discovering them. And that is the added bonus: watching the reactions of your children as they stumble across elves having a marshmallow roast, elves hidden in homemade forts or buried deep in vases. I am an avid Scrabble player and am pleased to find out that the elves are formidable future opponents:

Colour photos illustrated each scene. Sometimes there were two or three photos for each idea depicted.