Our little house is so cramped for space, that I have to be extremely clever in where I hide my son's gifts.
In previous years, I have put my son's stuff in shopping bags, amongst the other gifts, in the top of HIS closet! It was the only closet I could clear out space in! And if he asked what was up there, I'd just honestly tell him that those were the gifts we had been buying for everyone... and he was ok with that! But now that he's almost 6, I'm feeling like that's too risky... and his closet is too full at the moment with other things that I have no place for... so this year, his gifts so far are in the trunk of our 69 Camaro in the garage... lol The only problem is my dad smokes in there, and I DON'T want any of the stuff to smell like smoke, but I'm hoping that with being in the trunk, and with the car cover over the car, they'll be ok...
Where do you hide yours?
In the scary corner of the basement, in a metal closet near the (stinky) cat box. Kids don't go anywhere near it!! :)
My son is almost 3 1/2. Until this year I didn't have to be too clever with my hiding spots. Now he is into everything and always helping me. He already found one gift that I hid in my closet when he was 'helping' me put away my sandals for the winter. I now plan to hide the rest of his gifts at my parents' house.
I do a lot of shopping on line and have the things delivered to my office...and they stay there until the last minute.
All over the place as our house is small. I have a Google document that lists where they all are, otherwise I forget.
In the luggage is a great idea. I put ours in the guest room closet and the garage cabinets.
I put most of them in my suitcases in the closet in our bedroom. Wrapped & unwrapped. Bigger, bulkier stuff in the attic. Extremely bigger bulkier stuff goes in my in-laws garage. Actually, we have put stuff in our garage with a quilt over it. My son never questioned it!
I wrap them as soon as I get them and put them under the tree. Problem solved :)
My friend just moved into the neighborhood this summer. She's already agreed to store them for us!
I kept the sacred stuff in the trunk of the car.
Lol Sonomom 2... we do the same thing. We put them all in the storage part of the basement, near the heater. They are in black trash bags with comforters over them. We tell the little ones that it is dirty and buggy back there. They dont go anywhere near it. Older ones... well they tried to peek once, they already know though.
Mom used to hide ours in the cedar chest, and we never went through there. I keep mine in the guest room closet. In our other house, there wasn't enough room in the guest closet, and I hid stuff under our bed in those under the bed storage things b/c my kids aren't allowed in my bedroom without us just as a general rule.
right now they are in hubby's closet only because no one opens that door :). i did open it last night and jammed the door pretty good. need a new hiding place now.
I pack them up in Rubbermaids and put them in the basement. As far as the kids are concerned, it's a bunch of our old junk :)
In the garage, in the attic, in the guest bedroom...some place different each time!!
We have a small house, too. Our utility room (where the washer/dryer, furnace, well pump, extra freezer are kept) isn't a place kids usually explore.
We've always kept extra cardboard boxes and rags behind the furnace (there's a small walkway). I usually put Santa presents back there and cover them up with one of the old sheets (one is usually lying around).
I've been doing this for 11 years and our daughter has never figured out yet where we "hide" Santa's presents.
I leave them in a back office at work. I know there is an alarm on the place and my family will never be here. It works out pretty well perfectly. I can even wrap them here before I take them home.
we have done a couple of things. one year I had a big box delivered (don't remember what it was from but it was about half the size of a washer/dryer box. I emptied it out and left it empty for a few days then piled some old towels etc in it. told the kids I was using it for stuff to donate. they ignored it after that. i filled it full of christmas stuff
a few years ago I wrapped stuff up in shower paper and said they were shower gifts. no one snooped. right before christmas i changed the wrapping lol
We don't have go to great effort to hide them - yet.
When I was growing up, our neighbor started hiding her kids' gifts at our house. They'd torn the house apart the year before and found all of them (and opened a few!) before Christmas. So they were safely hidden behind our couch for several years running after that.
Under the tree. All presents are wrapped usually the night I bring them home after the kids are in bed and then go under the tree. The kids each get one gift from santa and that I hide in the back of the storage space in the basement.
I have a large oversized 3+ garage. Although my daughter is 16, my extra space is usually used for my neighbors' Santa gifts.
On Christmas Eve, we help deliver with " Santa".
haha.. um.. in the corner of my bedroom with a blanket over it... they havent figured it out yet lol.. when they get bigger probably under their own beds, they would have no clue!
Garage closet.
It is locked.
Kids don't go there.
At Grandma's house! She is only a few min away and actually on the way home from the main stores in our area ... so they go in her bedroom closet!
I have put stuff in my hubby's closet several times, in kitchen cabinets behind the glasses, in the cabinet over the washer and dryer because that is where all the cleaners and stuff is kept and it is out of reach. They know they will have groundings reign down on them if they even look like they are thinking of climbing up there.
At a friends house if it was big, like a bike from Santa or the Kangaroo climber he brought one year. One year Santa brought a trampoline which I was very annoyed because I KNOW they are the MOST dangerous thing parents give their kids. But Santa wanted the kids to have it and I thought long and hard and decided okay. (My thoughts are that by the time they are old enough to not fear the consequences of disobeying the strict rules of the trampoline it would be worn out and gone). Santa brought it over after dark on Christmas Eve and sat it up, then he (she) tied huge jingle bells with red ribbons all over the springs. The kids loved jumping on it with the bells still on the springs for weeks.
We have 3 tubs of variegated sizes of huge jungle bells for Christmas tree decorations. When we first got married we both had cats and the only way to keep a cat out of a Christmas tree is for it to scare them. When they touched it the tree made lots of noise so the cats left it alone, all alone, on the other side of the room alone...it was funny to watch the cats change their course when going through the living room while the tree was set up.
Back to the question....anyplace the children do not frequently go in to. My cousin who is a foster mom starts buying gifts for all ages of kids in January when everything is on sale. She has a closet in the living room/hallway area that has a lock on it (vacuum and cleaning stuff) and she put shelves in it and the gifts go in them easily. She also will use them for random gifts through out the year if the foster kids get invited to birthday activities.
