Monday, December 14, 2009

Seek And You Shall Find

My Christmas shopping so far consists of:

  • A ridiculous splurge on so-cheap-it'd-be-a-crime-not-to-buy-them presents for Anna at Costco.
  • Lots of internet shopping where I fill my cart up with an entire family full of presents and then fail to complete the purchase at the last possible second due to financial guilt.
  • An insane rush around World Market with a $10 off any purchase of $30 coupon (I spent $87 dollars, which wasn't quite how I'd planned it, damn you coupons). This World Market binge basically means that if you know me in real life then you will be getting a Chocolate Orange for Christmas, because I have always loved them and they were made until 2005 in York, but are now made in Slovakia which is a bit crap really, yet I still bought fifteen. Approximately. Damn you Slovak sweat-shops.
That's it. I have approximately eight presents for Anna (and I am not extravagant, just sleep-deprived and forgetful) and one (1) present for Lucy - even though it'll be her first birthday only two weeks after Christmas. One day she will read this and hate me, but honestly, her favourite thing right now is a bath and that is cheap, cheerful and hygienic if a little hard to wrap. She is too little to count presents, wears all of Anna's old clothes, plays with all of Anna's old toys, and quite frankly will have more fun with the wrapping paper, blah blah blah.

Anna on the other hand is getting a little more sophisticated when it comes to Christmas. Remember last year's heart-wrenchingly cute Christmas list? Well, this year she's got a bona fide list involving My Little Ponies, Barbies and various other pink plastic rubbish. In my mad dash round Costco I bought a violently pink barbie complete with bejeweled pink horse (shoot me) and some much more civilized Playmobil horse and stable play thing. Anna has pretty much never played with her Playmobil plane and airport, but I love Playmobil and will keep pushing it on her especially if it's almost 50% off.

Now, I managed my sprint around Costco child free (gasp). I patted myself on the back for securing two good, solid, cheap presents. Then it occurred to me that I had no idea where I was going to hide them. I thought about sticking them in the attic but couldn't remember where LK kept the step ladder. I thought about Marge Simpson hiding things in the salad crisper - the one place Homer would never look. Where was the one place Anna would never look? My closet under some clothes? Under the bed? Well apparently I was wrong on that score because she found the painfully pink princess and was gazing longingly at it when I walked in to the bedroom the other evening.

"Look what I found Momma!" she gasped, clearly thinking that if you just wish hard enough these things appear in the strangest of places.

I explained that it was for Christmas, that she would be getting it, just not right now and bizarrely, she was fine with that. A little too fine, which makes me think I should check my crap-old-clothes bottom drawer and make sure it's still re-hidden there.

I can't hide everything in my bottom drawer though, and thanks to some careless internet shopping at 3am recently there is more stuff on the way.

Where do you hide your Christmas presents for the kids? The attic? The trunk of the car? Knicker drawer? Salad crisper? Under the tree (brave, trusting souls). Help is needed.

11 comments:

The Honourable Husband said...

My mother hid the presents with the kind neighbour lady across the street. Sometimes, she might get them back with an extra Matchbox car or two tucked inside.

MSCJ said...

My mom used to gift-wrap the presents and then hide them on the top shelf of the linen closet. My younger sister found out and one afternoon she climbed to the top shelf and cut tiny holes in the gift wrap to find out what she was getting. By doing that she once cut the hair off her brand new Barbie doll… But Anna is still way too young to get into that kind of trouble. I think.

Eden Kennedy Onassis said...

In the trunk of my car, but even that ended badly one year.

Almost American said...

In boxes on the top shelf of the master bedroom closet - the kids can only get to it with a stepstool, and the last time they tried hunting for presents they forgot to put the stepstool away again, so I knew what they'd been up to.

I also put stuff in the basement, hidden among DH's woodworking tools since they know better than to go near those!

My mother was known to leave them at a friend's house.

Tuesy said...

My kids are 5 and 8, and they LOVE the Playmobil. It sat around a bit and got poked at when they were younger, but now that they have the manual dexterity and the imagination needed, they play almost every day.

And I have to say that 50% off makes me quite jealous!

Expat mum said...

I was just about to say I wrap them, but Siri's comment had made me think again. How come if they still believe in Santa Claus, they know to go looking round the house?

Daffodilly said...

I hide them in a suitcase with a padlock on!

Carrie said...

Why, my girl is 6 and I actually hid her presents IN HER ROOM. Right on her bed. Cause, Lord knows, since she is still sleeping with us, she will NEVER see her presents.
Which actually is quite depressing when I think long and hard about the whole co-sleeping bit.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Mom of 2 Redheads said...

I hide my kids presents inside the Christmas boxes that all of our decorations, lights, ornaments, etc. are stored in all year. So, when we empty the boxes to decorate our house, we store the presents in there. Last year we bought a new TV and i stored the presents in there. That was a huge nuisance though to have a huge TV box just hanging out in the middle of our bedroom for about a month. Don't know if i recommend that one. ;)

kenandbelly said...

Mom of 2 Redhead's is brilliant- I'll remember that one! We're stashing some in our suitcases. Also, for smallish long things (Barbies, action figures), behind the books on the bookshelf. When our girl gets more tricksy, I plan to have things shipped to my or my DH's office(s).

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