I believe my children are the nosiest children in the world. Since we don't do Santa, every year when they were younger, they would start clawing through the house looking for presents. Every year, somebody would find something...
UNTIL WE CONFUSED THEM...
We started hiding all the presents in my husband's closet so they could look in there all they wanted.
The trick: the labels were in some kind of "foreign" language that they didn't know, or wrapped in paper that would not make any sense.
TIPS:
1. Wrap all the girls' presents in boy paper and the boys' presents in girl paper. Then, put the boys' names on the boy paper and the girls' names on the girl paper. When it's time to unwrap, tell them they have to look for a sibling's name instead of their own.
2. Let each child pick out their own roll of wrapping paper that they want to be used. Then wrap other children's gifts in their siblings paper. Give each child a number and use that on the gift tags. They think they know which are their gifts based on the paper and they think the numbers are the order to open them.
3. Write symbols on all the name tags with each symbol representing a child.
4. Put super hero names on all of the labels. Either a name can equal a child, or to really confuse them, use 2 super hero names per child so there are more names than family members.
5. If you are Star Wars fans like we are, do the same as #2, but with obsolete Star Wars characters. Tell them they must figure out who the character is before they can open the gifts.
6. Use the planets from Star Wars on the labels. We tried to match the child to the planet and then made them figure out why we picked that one.
7. Put only the small gifts like underwear, socks and school supplies under the tree. They will be somewhat frustrated at this point. For the last gift that they open, start a scavenger hunt to the larger gifts and make it as easy or hard as desired.
After a few years of these, they got bored trying to snoop and now the little ones have learned to not even bother.
Most important tip ever:
However you mark the gifts, make notes so you don't forget which gift is which! Hide the notes in a place you know the children can not find. I promise you it can make unwrapping rather interesting if you forget to write things down. Our children can vouch for that.
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Have you ever tricked your children on Christmas morning? If so, please share in the comments. I would love to hear your story.
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