The Decorations Are Up, Now Where to Hide the Gifts

Even though I ran (way) late on getting decorations up, now that they are, the next challenge for Christmas at my house is...where to hide the gifts I've purchased.

If you're facing this same challenge, a quick search of the internet shows a couple things.  First, there are many of us seeking advice and hoping for some amazing new ideas, and second, there are not many amazing new ideas.

Most of the life hack sites seem to point to the typical places advisinig we stash them in the attic, under the bed, or maybe in the trunk of the car.  I see problems with all of these (as I'm sure you do too).  The attic is not only inconvenient, but likely dusty, could be noisy, and can be obvious when you're trying to sneak into it.  Under the bed seems just a little bit too predictable, and the car?  Well, that's perfect until your trunk is inadvertantly opened or, worse yet, visible if it's an SUV or van.

I have an 11 year-old who has become more sophisticated in his understanding of how all this Christmas magic likely comes together, so my gut is the search for evidence may be more deliberate this year.  For that reason, I was grateful to find a couple new ideas.

The first I have used once and it was amazing.  Hide the gifts in luggage.  It seeems unlikely the kiddos or even our special someone would think to look in luggage.  I did this one year when I was married, and to my knowledge, it worked like charm.

The other concept I love works best if you have a messy kid.  Hide it in "plain sight" in their room.  Maybe under a pile of laundry, maybe in the closet, or even under their bed.  If cleaning up the room has been a struggle, it would be not just a potentially effective hiding place, but also quite satisying as you know they haven't found them yet.  You just have to remember to grab it before Christmas Eve.