Thursday, December 9, 2010

Advent Calendar - December 9 – Grab Bag

When I was a child, my parents would put presents under the tree in the days leading up to Christmas, as the presents were wrapped. Crawling around under the tree to discover any new packages was great fun. It was even more fun to try and guess what was in the package!

When Santa came Christmas Eve, he would stuff our stocking with wrapped gifts and leave "the big gift" unwrapped under the tree. I was always perplexed though. Santa used the same wrapping paper as my parents. I just didn't get it.

When we had a family of our own, I was determined not to leave any question whatsoever as to the genuineness of Santa Claus. Special wrapping or tissue paper was purchased and hidden. Any gifts that went into the stockings must have different wrapping paper from presents under the tree. We laugh about it now but apparently I was successful.


© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

5 comments:

  1. I had to laugh when I read this. I too lived in fear of my kids figuring out that all the wrapping paper was the same, and while we didn't leave presents under the tree during the days leading up to Christmas, they always helped wrap presents for Dad and Mom and therefore saw the "stash" of wrap. When this question came up, I simply told them that Santa couldn't possibly provide all the gifts AND the wrapping paper so I always left some out for him to use - just in case. Then the bigger question - why does Santa write just like Mommy? - kids are too smart :)

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  2. Clap, clap, a Santa after my own heart. Creative.

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  3. My mom, and now my husband and I, always use separate Santa paper from everything else. I think it helped keep the mystery alive for me and my sister longer. I hope it works that well for my own girls.

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  4. We must all be on the same page....lol When I was a child, Santa rarely wrapped the presents, so I was determined to have all my children's gifts from Santa wrapped...ribbon....bows...the whole nine yards. I don't know if it kept the secret of Santa for them or not.

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  5. We always kept special Santa wrapping paper in a secret place. And Santa didn't use our tags, either; instead, a piece of wrapping paper was folded with To: (name of child), From: Santa - and it was in Santa's handwriting, not Mom's or Dad's.

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