STORM2K

As the father of two boys, I was asked repeatedly and annually by Santa to store their presents and gifts in safe and secluded places until he could deliver them for Christmas morn.

I remember storing them in my sister's third level attic, in my mother in law's dingy old furnace room, under beds, under clothes, and in places where spiders made their home.

I once assembled a five-foot plastic aircraft carrier for Santa on an old rug we had. I then dragged the old rug and that aircraft carrier into the damp and dirty crawl space of the house, smacking my head a half dozen times on joists and heat ducts along the way. As I tried to stand about a half step too soon, I perforated my forehead with a nailhead sticking through the plywood underlayment of the living room. I should have been awarded battle pay for joining the Navy that Christmas.

On another occasion, a major snowstorm set in on Christmas eve. I was put in charge of the package run to grandma's house about 8 miles away in the middle of that icy day. I made the tip, but had to leave the packages in the car in the garage until the boys had finally fallen asleep.

Then, getting out of my warm chair, I made my way to the cold concrete floor of the garage and one by one brought the packages into the house. Brrrr it was cold that night.

Share some of your tales...the commitments you had to make to keep Santa's gifts for him until that wonderful day finally arrived!

Steve - all of the above! Lots of late night assembly sessions, hiding gifts all over the place too. Jim usually got stuck with the assembly.....he he. But hey, I did all the shopping!!!

One year Nina wanted a chalkboard. She was into playing school a lot. I couldn't find one I liked. This was before online shopping, that would have helped. LOL Anyway, several days before xmas I was panicking so I called a small office supply store nearby. Asked if they carried them, they said sure. They had all sizes, for offices. I thought hey this is just what *I* want, a real chalkboard, not some flimsy play thing. Sometimes what you find at Toy r Us is inferior..... So since my kids were little (5 and 8 probably), couldn't be left home alone, no sitter, Dad at work, I called ahead asking if they'd put a certain size one aside. I was making this call in a closet or something. LOL They assured me nowhere on the box did it say - Chalkboard. Just a bunch of numbers. So I told the girls we had to pick up an item for Jim's office. And the store's clerk was in on it. I walked in and said yes I need to pick up - whatever I said it was - for my husband's office. The clerk played along, we both exchanged winks. Nina and Laura standing right by my side, listening intently. I'm sure we made the clerk's day! I know I would have enjoyed being in on something secretive like that. I paid for it, put it in the trunk, to give to their Dad that evening. We pretended to swap it to his trunk, for work ya know. LOL Later when they were asleep I got it out of my trunk. Have no idea where I put it now.....if they had seen that box they would have asked a ton of questions. I remember thinking I had been pretty clever to be able to buy this in front of my kids!

That was one Secret Santa gift I really pulled off. Told them later about it, to which they just smiled. We still have that chalkboard, since it's oak and a nice one. Not sure where we even want to put it. We may give it to my niece. Along with it we gave her a 5 chalk prong holder, to draw lines on the board for cursive practicing. She had such fun with this chalkboard..

When we first moved into our house, our basement was for storage only. 5 or so years later, my kids were old enough to play down there but we hadn't put rugs down yet. Then a neighbor asked to store a bike there for her daughter, Nina's friend. I thought sure, my kids won't want to venture down there. But one day Nina was just about to open that basement door.....I stopped her just in time. I made going down there sound like it would be going down into a dungeon. LOL I realized then and there we needed to clean it up and put down a rug or two. As soon as xmas was over, Mary's basement was unavailable for gift hiding. If Nina had seen that bike....oh my. And then she would have put two and two together later as her friend was zipping all over the place on it. But I clearly remember running for that door knob, shouting - NO, YOU CAN'T GO DOWN THERE!

Man oh man, it's hard to pull all of this off. On one hand, I'm relieved my kids know the truth, but sad that they don't have that wide eyed wonder still either. As if one man could shimmey down chimney's to each boy and girl's house. LOL

Mary

Over the years of helping Santa we had done all of the above too!! I really enjoy that part of Christmas festivities..hiding, wrapping, all the sneaking around!

This year I have opted to do the "plain sight" hiding.Most of my kids presents are wrapped and stored upstairs on the third floor.I tagged all the boxes with other names, most of them my neice Kiah.My kids think that Kiah is getting the lion's share of Christmas presents this year!! LOL!!They are fairly fainting to know what is in one particually HUGE box...it's really my son's remote controlled truck....but **shhhhh** we won't tell!!

Happy Holidays!!
Raine