Well, this is probably a little late for some of you, but my wife had a fun idea this holiday season that I thought you might enjoy hearing about or even trying. Instead of using the traditional “to” and “from” on each gift, we numbered the gifts sequentially. The kids’ excitement swelled when they saw the gifts under the tree. Then the questions started... “Who is number 1?” “Since I am the oldest do I get gift number 1, Vin gets number 2, Owen gets number 3?” Since we just numbered them in the order that they were wrapped, there really wasn’t any rhyme or reason to the numbering. Usually the kids are trying to guess each of their gifts, but this time they weren’t even sure which ones were theirs. So far this year, only my oldest has admitted to “shaking” ALL of the gifts.
This numbering idea was intentional for a couple of reasons. First, we weren’t finished shopping and we didn’t want anyone disappointed about the number of gifts not being equal. Second, we thought it would be even more of a surprise if they didn’t know which gifts were theirs (i.e. they had no idea which gifts to shake and mess with). So we had a fun time with it. Then, of course, we also wanted to get everything wrapped and under the tree as quickly as possible to keep little peeping eyes off of them.
If you give it a try don’t forget to keep a thorough list and keep it safe. Our list included whom each gift was for and whom it was from.We also created a grouping to mark which gifts would be opened by the three of them, simultaneously, just by using an Excel sort. Happy wrapping!
