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Twelve elves snuck out of the workshop and scattered around your house. That’s the whole premise behind an elf scavenger hunt, and it’s exactly the kind of simple, story driven setup that gets kids moving without you needing to plan a single thing beyond hiding some characters before breakfast.
If you’ve mostly seen the single elf version of this tradition (the one that moves one figure around your house each night), this is a different kind of game entirely. Instead of one elf hiding once, twelve unique elves hide all at once, and the fun is in the group search, not a nightly ritual you have to keep up with for weeks.
What Makes an Elf Hunt Different From a Regular Scavenger Hunt
A lot of scavenger hunts hand kids a list of random objects to track down around the house. An elf hunt works differently, and that difference is what makes it click with younger kids specifically.
Instead of hunting for things, kids hunt for characters:
- Every elf looks different, so there’s no confusion about what they’re searching for
- The tracker sheet gives a visual “collect them all” feeling kids respond to immediately
- There’s a clear finish line: once all twelve are found, the hunt is over
- It plays just as well with two kids as it does with a whole classroom
That last point matters more than it sounds. A lot of hunts fall apart with bigger groups because everyone’s chasing the same handful of clues. With twelve distinct elves spread around a room, a group can search in parallel without stepping on each other.
Meet the Elves
This is the idea behind Elf Hunt. Twelve elves, each with its own hat, hairstyle, and expression, hide around your home, classroom, or party space. Kids search until every elf on their tracker sheet is checked off.
What’s included:
- A Poem and Tracker Sheet, with a rhyming setup and a spot to check off each elf as it’s found
- Hide Cards, 12 per page, sized for smaller hiding spots
- Hide Cards, 6 per page (two sets), sized bigger for more visible placements
It’s a printable, so there’s no shipping wait during the busiest weeks of December. Print, cut, hide, and you’re playing within minutes.
How to Set Up an Elf Hunt in Under Five Minutes
- Print the Hide Cards and cut them apart.
- Hide all twelve elves around the space while kids are occupied, or the night before for a surprise the next morning.
- Hand out the Poem and Tracker Sheet and read the rhyme together before the search begins.
- Kids check off each elf as it’s found, working toward the full set of twelve.
- Celebrate once every elf has been tracked down.
No timers, no scorekeeping, no need to referee. Once it’s set up, kids run the rest of it themselves.
A Good Fit for Classrooms and Elf on the Shelf Fans Too
If your family already does the traditional Elf on the Shelf routine, this makes a natural companion activity rather than a competitor to it. The nightly single elf tradition is about anticipation, waiting to see where he turns up each morning. This hunt is about the opposite: a burst of active, all at once searching that works well as a special occasion event rather than a nightly habit.
It also holds up well outside the home. Teachers running classroom parties need games that don’t require one on one supervision, and a hunt where every “find” is visually obvious (no reading required) is easy to run with a full class. Hide the cards before the kids arrive, hand out tracker sheets, and let them go.
Tips for a Smoother Hunt
- Keep the tracker sheet in one central spot, like the kitchen table, so kids can run back and check off finds as they go rather than losing track mid search.
- This works just as well as a quick five minute filler activity as it does a full party centerpiece, scale the hiding difficulty to match how much time you actually have.
Ready to Send the Elves Into Hiding
An elf scavenger hunt doesn’t need to be complicated to be the activity your kids ask for again next year. Twelve elves, one tracker sheet, and a search that runs itself once you’ve hidden the cards.
For more Christmas game ideas to round out your holiday plans, check out our guide to printable Christmas games, or if you’d rather send your kids after a herd of reindeer instead of elves, that hunt is coming soon too.
