Christmas Gifts: Stored, Lost, and Found (sometimes)

When my children were little, sometimes I could buy a gift right under their noses,  store it  practically in sight, and wrap it on a table they could  not see over. Plus, they slept a lot.

Then, they grew up and were getting curious about everything. You know how toddlers become. Nothing escaped them. Things had to be hidden high and behind things and in a bag.

My children were about five and seven and volunteered to stay home while I shopped. Of course not! They confessed a few years later that they did a Christmas hunt when I was out of sight. Apparently, I did not have to leave the house.

One Christmas when son was nine-years-old, I bought a Boy Scout knife for Santa to leave in his stocking. Well, I brought it home from the store and never saw it again. I had to go out and buy another. I had hidden the original one so well and in the bottom of a large bag with other things that I obvious threw it out.

One year, they were old enough to leave home and very nosy. So, I hid all the presents in the trunk of the car. We had a two-door car. The three of them had to get in the back seat with a dozen bags of groceries. They were very unhappy having to ride so cramped. I told them the trunk was full of lawn chairs because their daddy had not gotten them out yet.

They harassed him to get stuff out of the trunk. Finally, my son said to just give him the keys and he would take everything out himself. Then, I had to guard my keys...for over a month!

Years later, when my daughter was an adult, she asked me where all the toys were that year because she and her brother had searched the whole house. That was the moment she told me they always hunted for their gifts.

The year they were getting rink skates, the older two did not know they were getting cases, too. I had to wrap those and say they were for my family. Finally, I told them I got them something extra but they did not know their skates were in the boxes.. Into each skate case I put a Tupperware tumbler with pecans and bells inside. So, they amused me and kept themselves entertained shaking those two boxes with skates and a case. The little one got plastic Superman skates that worked well on the carpet.

When I was about eight-years-old, Santa forgot to put some things out. My mother and father "discovered" something up about a foot from the floor in the limbs of our Christmas tree and near the trunk. Later, I remembered one of my parents disrupting our Christmas with something so the other could hide the gifts in the tree. They wondered aloud why Santa put gifts there.

For many years I used several drawers in a 7 ft. dresser to save gifts for any occasion. No one was looking for anything, so just sticking them in worked well. Now, I have things all over and often go though a feverish search for something I know I have stashed somewhere.

Your turn
Can you share a few stories of nosy children, gifts lost never to be found, or gifts misplaced and found? Any gift story will work.