As a child, Ashleigh Turner could not get enough of the festive season.
"I just love everything about Christmas," Ms Turner said.
"When I was younger, I would always watch all the Christmas movies on the Disney Channel and I would always love how the Americans would just go all out."
While she had not heard of the popular Christmas tradition of Elf on a Shelf until a few years ago, the Canberra-based YouTuber said she would have lapped it up if it was around when she was a child.
Now with a 15-month-old-daughter of her own, the Kaleen resident has gone all out with embracing the tradition of hiding the elf around the house in a new position each day, and is documenting the experience online.
But while parents often struggle for new and fresh ideas for what to do with the elf and where to hide it around the house each day, Ms Turner has uploaded a video documenting 76 different ways the elf can be hidden. Already racking up thousands of views on YouTube, Ms Turner said the idea behind the video was to come up with ideas that can be done either for free or cheaply.
"People seeing Elf on a Shelf on social media has made more people do it at their home," she said.
"It wasn't daunting trying to do it for the first time, I was hopefully wanting to inspire other people with ideas, and do anything I could do to make Christmas more magic."
Some of the Elf on A Shelf ideas put forward by Ms Turner in the video include a very 2020 slant on the tradition, by putting the elf in a glass container as an 'elf quarantine' after coming from the North Pole.
Others include hanging him up as an ornament on the Christmas or stuck in a Christmas stocking.
Ms Turner said there were also several ideas about using the elf in and around the kitchen.
"One of them could be the elf doing a baking disaster," she said.
"For that one, I got some flour and some sprinkles and put them around the elf to make it look like he had made a mess, and my daughter thought that was hilarious."
While Ms Turner said variety was key in finding different ways to hide the elf around the home each day in the lead up to Christmas, she said one of the easiest ones to come up with was the final hiding place for Christmas Eve.
"On the last night, you can get the elf to leave a note to say 'see you next year'," she said. "There are also other ideas where you can get some miniature boxes that can be the elf's suitcase and it can be him packing to leave with Santa on Christmas Eve."
Ms Turner said while she may be new to doing Elf on a Shelf, she said it was already set to be a tradition in the household for years to come, with ideas for YouTube videos for next year's Christmas already being formed.
"I definitely wish that I had this when I was a kid, but I am having fun out of it now as an adult," she said. "A lot of people have messaged me about the videos that they're getting lots of enjoyment out of it with all the ideas."
