Zooey Deschanel Sets Up Elaborate Elf on a Shelf Display for Her Two Kids: 'An Escape or a Break In?'

The actress shares her daughter Elsie Otter, 8, and son Charlie Wolf, 6, with ex-husband Jacob Pechenik

Zooey Deschanel has a few tricks up her sleeve this Christmas.

On Thursday, the New Girl actress, 43, shared a video to her Instagram Story of the elaborate Elf on the Shelf display she created for her two kids, son Charlie Wolf, 6, and daughter Elsie Otter, 8.

In the clip, two elves hang from a thread attached to her heating vent, with one appearing to shimmy down the rope and the other looking like he's clinging on.

"I can't take a picture of them?" Deschanel asks her kids, who begin protesting.

"Well you might not see it, they might like disappear in the picture or something," one of her kids answers.

"Oh. I hope not. What if I have magic video?" she says. "They are crafty."

"But is it an escape or a break in?" Deschanel wrote across the video.

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Related: Zooey Deschanel's Kids Thought She and Jonathan Scott Were Married When They Got Engaged (Exclusive)

Deschane, who is engaged to Jonathan Scott, shares her two kids with ex-husband Jacob Pechenik.

In October, the Property Brothers star and the actress chatted with PEOPLE about their engagement story, revealing that Deschanel's kids were a little confused after the proposal.

The engagement, which took place at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, began with a guitarist Scott had hired to play Neil Young's song "Harvest Moon."

"So when that started happening, Zooey, all of a sudden...You saw this, 'What's happening?' " Scott recalled.

"Somebody magically took the kids over on the other side where the band was, and I was like, 'Something's happening,' " Deschanel added.

The star noted that she wasn't quite sure what was happening until her kids walked back out. "And then the kids pulled a banner out that said, 'Zooey, will you marry me?' " Scott said.

"And I said yes," Deschanel told PEOPLE.

Although Deschanel's kids played an integral part in their engagement, they didn't really understand the proposal until after their mom said yes. "When Elsie turned around and read [the sign], that was the first time she learned," Scott said of the couple's engagement. "And she immediately goes, 'Huh, did you just get married?'"

"And we're like, 'Well, no, not yet, but we got engaged.' And she's like, 'Does that mean I get to be a flower girl?' And we're like, 'Yes. Yes you can.' So it was really sweet to have them there too."

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