Joe Swash fears wife Stacey Solomon has got a bit too much into Elf on the Shelf this year after becoming the main victim of the "elf's" pranks.
The actor and former I'm A Celebrity winner, 41, shares three children with the Loose Women panelist – Rex, five, Rose, two, and Belle, who is almost one.
Solomon also has two older sons from previous relationships, Zach, 15, and Leighton, 11, while Swash is dad to Harry,16, with ex Emma Sophocleous.
Elf on the Shelf is a recent, yet popular Yuletide tradition where a "special scout elf" is sent from Father Christmas to encourage children to behave themselves.
"Our lot love it," Swash tells The Standard.
"We’ve been doing Elf on the Shelf for the last few weeks where this elf has just been terrorising me. It doesn’t seem to do anything to Stacey," he laughs.
"The elf has literally been drawing on my face, been sticking Smarties to my pants. I know that it’s Stacey, but we pretend it’s the elf so with Stacey in front of the kids I’m like ‘oh, look what the elf has done Stace, very clever!’"
It's all for a good cause he insists, explaining: "We try to do out utmost to make it really special as possible for the kids"."We’ve got a little elf [also called Joe] that we made last year on Crafty Christmas and it’s made out of like a loo roll and a ping pong ball but the kids love it," he continued.
"Rex took it to school the other day because he’s so proud of this elf. The elf has become a staple part of our Christmas."
They've already made a number of fun festive memories this year, including going ice skating at Somerset House and paying a visit to Father Christmas at LaplandUK.
Giving an insight into what the big day its self is like in the Swash/Solomon household, he said: "Christmas is amazing, it’s all about the kids at Christmas. We’ve got six kids and Christmas is the best time to have kids because you just get to see how magical it is for them and how special it is. It’s going to be baby Belle’s first Christmas. Last year it was Rose’s first Christmas so that’s always really nice."This year, he has partnered with mobile phone provider Three UK, who has conducted research revealing that one fifth (19 percent) of Gen Zs would rather give up turkey and all the trimmings than their precious mobile phone on Christmas Day."I didn't realise how much phones have become part of Christmas," he admitted. "We love playing games together as a family on Christmas Day, particularly the one where everyone puts their phones to their heads, and you give clues to guess the card.
"I’m also the designated cook and get inspiration from looking up recipe videos online," he added.
Asked who was the biggest offender between him and Solomon when it comes to using their phone, Swash didn't hesitate: "I’d have to say Stacey, she does love to stay connected withpeople.
"She loves an Instagram post and you know what Stacey does as well, she edits all of her own stuff so a lot of time she’s editing her stuff for Instagram because she’s so good at it.
"I’ve done that thing of checking out what TikTok was all about because the kids were on it and it sucked me in! So I sometimes get caught searching through TikTok aimlessly."
