It’s time for me to get serious about shopping for holiday gifts.  But I have one big problem:  where to hide them. 

I’ve caught my children snooping for presents in the past.  Last year I found my older son hunting in the basement closet.  Unfortunately for him, the only gift that was in there was for his younger brother–and he already knew about that present.  A good hiding spot is crucial.

The kids see presents coming into the house; late November and early December bring a parade of cardboard boxes as the UPS guy rarely passes by our home without stopping.  While we have a large extended family, the kids must surely figure that not every package that comes in the door is for their grandparents or cousins.  They’re old enough to know the score.

Due to a rearranging of “stuff” in my storage areas, the basement closet is now out of the question for Christmas presents anyway.  I’ve got to think of something better.  Maybe I could take all the clothes out of the Rubbermaid bins labeled “Boy size 10″ and “Boy size 12″ and load presents in there.  I could get some dollar-store laundry baskets and just leave the clothes storage out there in plain sight.

One year I wrapped and numbered every gift.  There were no gift tags on them, just numbers.  I made up the gift tags with the number on the back for easy matching later.  But if I’d lost the master list, I would have had to unwrap every last package!

Another option would be to hide stuff among my pantry items.  No one’s going to think to look in a box labeled “canned asparagus,” right?

Or I could just give everybody gift cards.  Nah.  That’s no fun!

COUPON TIME

If you’ve figured out where you’re going to hide those holiday gifts, it’s time to start shopping!  Why not check out our Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals pages?