An Easy Way To Spice Up Your Christmas Tradition.

Today I'm posting as part of an online Christmas advent calender.  You can check out the other awesome posts as they unfold daily HERE.

Christmas has a way of testing one's resilience.

Especially in the eyes of my youngest daughter, Cali.

That girl is all spice.

And honestly, I get it.

I do.

I remember, as a kid, snooping around in my parent's room for my presents.  Sometimes I'd find them, but usually not.  We lived next door to my grandparents, and I found out as an adult that all of our Christmas presents were hidden in my grandparent's basement.

Obviously a wise choice on my parent's part.

But there's only so much a parent can do, and only so much anticipation I could handle.

As the presents began to show up under the tree, wrapped in pretty wrapping paper, and labeled with our names, I would sneak out to the tree in the middle of the night to look at them in all their Christmastime glory.

I would quietly find the packages with my name on them and careful peel back the tape on the end of the wrapping so I could unfold the end and see what was inside.  Then I would follow the folds of the paper, wrapping it back up just how it was, and replace the tape.

Guys, I know.

I was such a stinker. Horrible.  And my parents had no idea.

Honestly, I came to realize that Christmas morning really wasn't that much fun when I already knew what all my presents were.

I faced a similar situation a few years ago with my own children, Cali in particular.  Only, apparently, they're not as stealthy as I was as a child.

I began noticing that presents had ripped corners, exposing some of the present within.

Knowing how I was as a child, and knowing how I inevitably always ruined the magic for myself, I took this as a challenge.

How can I keep the magic of Christmas, but not have a strong temptation for my children to peak into wrapped presents?

Last year I heard about the perfect solution, so we tried it.

I wrapped all the presents as I normally would, but then labeled them with code names.

The kids still had fun poking around in the presents, and trying to guess what was in them, but I found as they didn't know which presents belonged to whom, that not of the presents were peaked into.

Though I did take the extra precaution of wrapping them in unidentifiable boxes as well.

It drove my kids crazy not knowing which presents were theirs.

On Christmas I had them pick one present with the code name that they thought was theirs.  One by one they would open the present they had chosen and then guess if they thought they were right, or if they thought that present belonged to a sibling.  After everyone had opened their present we told them if they were correct in their guesses, or not, and everyone got sorted out, and knew which code name belonged to them.

They loved this so much they asked if we could do it again this year.

And we are.

Maybe you have kids that are better behaved when faced with a pile of tempting presents than I have (or I was), regardless, this little trick added a layer of surprise that the kids really enjoyed.

If you're looking to try something new to spice up your Christmas traditions, this one is really easy to do.

With the holiday season up us, we wish you a Merry Christmas, from our family to yours.

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