No Peeking!

I have a blast Christmas shopping for the boys.  Even amongst the chaos and crowds, when I find that awesome gift for one of them it makes it worth it.  The hard part is when I get that awesome gift home and can't find a place to hide it!

With Bammers' birthday just before Christmas I have double duty of hide and "remember where the hell I put them".  The trouble with birthday Bam is that he's four this year and catching on to the hiding spots.  Boys are so sneaky! 

I tried the attic for some, but my oldest has been up and down from there helping us with Christmas decorations. 

I tried hiding some under our bed...Fat Dougie wasn't too happy with the bag handle and pulled it out. 

I tried hiding a couple in one of the NEVER USED CABINETS on the ginormous entertainment center.  Wouldn't you know, hubs needed a cable--some random object--that happened to be in there. 

So I've taken another rout this year.  I'm hiding them in plain sight!  Two gifts have been sitting out in the house for over a week now and the giftee has no clue!  For our teenager I'm pretty sure I can hide his on his bedroom floor since you never see it anyway.  I'm also thinking of hiding some in the dishwasher and behind the canned food and dry rice in the pantry.  NONE of the fellas in this house would ever look there!

And let's face it, if all else fails I'll just put them in the closet and stick this happy little guy in front of the door:

Happy Holiday Gift Hiding!

Tidings of Comfort and...Toys?

Christmas is about so much more than gifts and decorating; it's about the birth of Jesus, the kindness of strangers, and the celebration of life. Ha! Tell that to a kid whose Christmas list amounts to the same cost as the national debt!

Trying to save money? Trying to keep it simple this year? Trying to preserve the last bit of sanity as you stand in line with the must have toy of the year for your 10, 11, 12, etc. year old? Good luck.

This year the hubster and I are having to buy at two different ends of the age scale for our kids. Our 10 year old boy wants BMX gear, clothes (yeah, boys like clothes too if you buy the right kind), an Ipod, dirt bike, gold chain, XBox 360 (as if the regular XBox, PS 1-2-3-PSP aren't enough!) and cold hard cash. He did say he wanted samurai swords and an air soft gun (cheaper than the rest of the stuff he wants), but we're holding them in reserve pending his midterms.

Our 1 year old son doesn't have a clue what the decorations are for (besides the joy he gets out of knocking them over or pulling them off the tree), so our list for him is what we make it. Not to mention he just had his first birthday barely a week ago so the presents he got are still fun. Keeping the two celebrations (his birthday and Christmas) separate are going to be much harder as he gets older.

So here's good tidings to all. May we keep our sanity, patience, and road rage under control as we all try to survive the Christmas rush and New Year.

December 1, 2008

It's Monday, December 1, 2008. I've purchased one Christmas gift. I have two boys, a hubster, and numerous family and friends that still need gifts under the tree. Maybe I shouldn't put up a tree and pretend Christmas has already passed.

Then again, I have a few items I want for Christmas so maybe I'll suck it up and go shopping. Number one on my list is the safety fence for our pool. Our little guy started walking much sooner than we anticipated and after the unfortunate accident last year with Lou...well, we really need the fence. Number two is a jewelry box. I have a jewelry box, but the knobs keep falling off and my little one takes them! Number three on my list is a new cell phone. I'm a geek when it comes to gadgets. The new Blackberry looks heavenly, and though it's worth more than my total list combined I still want one.

What's your Christmas list look like?