Written by contributor Summer Robertson of House & Hold
I wasn’t an overly sneaky kid, never once did I secretly unwrap gifts for a peek! Promise. I was however an eager gift-shaker. And a great guesser. By Christmas morning I had a pretty good idea of what treasures were coming my way. So my clever Mom came up with a plan: she numbered all the gifts and kept a master list of the numbers, who it belonged to and what the gift was. Smarty pants!
Not only did it work like a charm (I had no clue which gift was mine, no matter how hard I shook!) but it created such an eventful Christmas morning for our little family. Opening gifts with the number system is quite the process! I would call out “Number 7! Who gets number seven?!”. We then opened gifts — one gift, one number at a time. No ripping into a pile of presents in matter of minutes leaving everyone a bit bewildered.
Now that I am a mom of three curious kids of my own, I gave my mom’s “Numbering System” a spin last Christmas. It was better than I remembered! My kids appreciated the time and attention they got in opening each gift, a moment in the spotlight! I appreciated all those little moments & bright smiles as my kids slowly opened their gifts. Mom’s numbering system is a hit and has now become a new tradition for my own little family.
Here’s the scoop:
1. Start a master list & keep it in a secret spot. If your kids find it, it’s a major fail.
2. As you wrap gifts assign each gift a number. My mom used to write the number on the giftwrap of the wrapped gift with a sharpie. You could print out numbers, write on gift tags or use white office sticker dots as I did.
3. Correspond the number on the gift with the same number on your list, making note of the recipient and the contents if you wish.
4. Since I do the majority of the gift shopping, I am master of the master list – Don’t loose it! You’ll need it on Christmas morning to answer “Eliot! Gift number 7 is for Eliot!”
What fun ways do you keep gifts a surprise on Christmas morning?
My parents did this for a few years, but my dad killed it the year he assigned each kid a certain problem, like my brother was all prime numbers, I was numbers that represented the ages in my family, my sister’s gifts had numbers that were multiples of 4 or something like that -yeah, there were audible groans when we heard we had to do math on Christmas morning to find the rest of our presents, lol!
Another trick was to follow a set of clues. My sister and I followed a trail of clues one Christmas Day that lead to matching suitcases (too big to wrap and fit under the tree).
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Oooh, great idea!! I’m going to do this – present-wrapping is on my list of things to do today!
As someone who almost always knew her gifts before Christmas morning, I think this is a great idea!
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I guess I’m just lucky that my kids don’t peek and they don’t dare open until we are all up and then they know it’s one at a time anyway! Our Christmas morning gift opening takes a couple of hours this way, with breakfast thrown in the middle of it, and is so much fun. I think the numbering would add more suspense though!