How do you get the presents in without the kids knowing?

Kermit.de.frog

Hey, I don't have kids yet but i'm curious as to what your tricks of the trade are for getting the presents to the tree on Christmas eve without them knowing?

This is how I found out Santa was fake incidentally - I stumbled across the presents one Christmas eve stocked up in another room in advance. I pretended I didn't. They were none the wiser.

Kids ears are fine tuned instruments on Christmas eve (mine were anyway) waiting for Santa.

So how is the mission accomplished in your house?

Happy to hear any disasters in this regard too. :cool:

P.S sorry if asked before, I didn't see a thread

jk23

I suppose wait until Christmas eve late after they have gone to bed and lock the door the presents are being kept in.

punisher5112

Leave in neighbours or car or family house....

Then when all in bed including ourselves santa comes along and leaves the gifts.....

alchemist33

We always wait until after midnight. One keeps watch while another ferries bags from room to room. Them barricade the living room door while arranging. Its always a late night for us, and we'd have a film or similar set up to keep us entertained.

pablo128

The first house we lived in had a flat roof, so the toys were hidden in the back of the folks wardrobes. I must have only been 6 or 7 when we twigged it.

Toots

Our house also has a flat roof, and previously we lived in an apartment so we've had to keep them off- site! We stash them in my parents' attic. It's massive and full of stuff, so we hide it under some other stuff. Then on Christmas eve we all go over there to help make a massive batch of stuffing, and everyone gets involved in that except my Dad and my husband, they're usually in watching TV or something.

Once stuffing making is underway, husband sneaks up the attic and loads the stuff in the car, then pops home under the pretence of checking up on the dog. Dad usually keeps a lookout during the present transfer. At the house, he unloads them either in to the shed, or under the bed or in the hot press.

We've other visiting to do, then mass, so we're usually not home til about 10pm, so the kids are put straight to bed, so no opportunity to go rooting for stuff. Then when they're thoroughly asleep we set everything up in the living room and go to bed ourselves.

Hoping to be able to buy our own house in the next few years and I'm definitely going to be looking for one with decent attic space!

Dr. Bre

Dress up as Santa ?

daheff

bring them in from the car when kids are asleep. lock them away somewhere where the kids cant find them.



incidently OP- I'm the same as you....my sister found where they were hidden one year and showed us all. magic ruined...but as i remember i wasn't overly disappointed. I couldnt take the suspense as a kid, so knowing in advance made the wait time more bareable

_Brian

Small bits are kept in the loft until Christmas Eve.
Herself brings kids to town and I’ll retrieve them and stash in our delressing room under clothes.

Larger items like bike are kept under sheets in shed on farm and I’ll get that late when kids are asleep.

Lord Spence

Well, presents hidden in the attic, take em down around the 22-23rd to wrap em all and then back up into the attic until late christmas eve. Thats the easy part the hard part is getting into their room on christmas eve night to fill theirs socks. Always a family tradition to have the socks in the room, absolute nightmare but its worth it when you hear them find them the next morning.

Anyways Happy Christmas everyone!!! Probably my last time here till after the big day. Relax, Enjoy try not to stress and enjoy all the hard work you put in to make the day special.

bee06

My almost 2 year old found his Santa present last week! Will have to do a better job next year. Working on the premise that he won’t remember!

ShaShaBear

We have everything stored in our wardrobe at present. The doors are lockable and even at that, everything is either inside a sealed, unmarked box or black bag so there's no way of them telling what's inside. They aren't allowed in our room unsupervised at any point in the year as our furniture isn't fixed to the walls (wall issue) like they are in other rooms, so there's no real risk of them even hunting for stuff let alone finding it by accident. We just wait until they're completely out, then shut their door tight and take things down and wrap them in batches. We're lucky in the sense that our bathroom is upstairs, so they're 100% used to the noise of us going up and down the stairs randomly throughout the night and it doesn't wake them.

Littlehorny

A good neighbour is ideal if you have big items alright. When my kids were small the next door neighbours had no kids and now our kids are grown up we are minding their little nippers presents.

Littlehorny

Littlehorny wrote: »

A good neighbour is ideal if you have big items alright. When my kids were small the next door neighbours had no kids and now our kids are grown up we are minding their little nippers presents.

Yeah we used to search our house from top to bottom every year. Never found anything. Really cemented our belief in Santa. Finally asked my mam a few years ago how she used to keep them so well hidden. The neighbours house! That neighbour was a really lovely lady. She used to work for Hasbro too and she'd always give us board games at Christmas.

Blaizes

Having a bit of a meltdown about this at the moment trying to hide stuff in wardrobes, hot press etc husband has take kids out visiting. Don’t forget to take price tags off everything.I’musually cool but this year lots of awkward clumsy boxes and kids who roam all over the house. Stress lots! Good luck to all parents tonight keep calm!!

Cloudio9

Calpol

pablo128

I've to disappear for an hour later on with my little one.

She's 11. I doubt if she even believes in santy anymore, but we'll keep up the pretence for another year to make sure.:pac:

I have no kids but my place is currently like Smyths.

I have presents sectioned off based on who gave me them to mind.

rushfan

Some years ago, I was videoing the kids opening their presents, they were a lot younger, the room is a mass of torn wrapping paper, stuff everywhere. The eldest ( approx. 5 or so ) leans back, serious expression & says "Are you sure Santa Claus exists?" Quick exchange of looks with herself wondering where had we gone wrong. We said " of course, why???". Eldest says "No, it's just that we have this wrapping paper upstairs!!!". Note to self...……….

Blaizes

rushfan wrote: »

Some years ago, I was videoing the kids opening their presents, they were a lot younger, the room is a mass of torn wrapping paper, stuff everywhere. The eldest ( approx. 5 or so ) leans back, serious expression & says "Are you sure Santa Claus exists?" Quick exchange of looks with herself wondering where had we gone wrong. We said " of course, why???". Eldest says "No, it's just that we have this wrapping paper upstairs!!!". Note to self...……….

Yeah it’s little things like that that can catch a parent out.Funny story though!

Postgrad10

rushfan wrote: »

Some years ago, I was videoing the kids opening their presents, they were a lot younger, the room is a mass of torn wrapping paper, stuff everywhere. The eldest ( approx. 5 or so ) leans back, serious expression & says "Are you sure Santa Claus exists?" Quick exchange of looks with herself wondering where had we gone wrong. We said " of course, why???". Eldest says "No, it's just that we have this wrapping paper upstairs!!!". Note to self...……….

Ha ha. Hence Santa never wrapped presents in our house!

rushfan

Postgrad10 wrote: »

Ha ha. Hence Santa never wrapped presents in our house!

The problem with that, as we subsequently discovered a couple of years later was that they were really disappointed that their pressies weren't wrapped.

ldy4mxonucwsq6

rushfan wrote: »

Some years ago, I was videoing the kids opening their presents, they were a lot younger, the room is a mass of torn wrapping paper, stuff everywhere. The eldest ( approx. 5 or so ) leans back, serious expression & says "Are you sure Santa Claus exists?" Quick exchange of looks with herself wondering where had we gone wrong. We said " of course, why???". Eldest says "No, it's just that we have this wrapping paper upstairs!!!". Note to self...……….

Wardrobes, attic, shed, car boot, bottom of ironing pile under all the clothes, along the tops of presses, I have stuff stashed everywhere!

We leave out our own wrapping paper for santa to use if he has time.

Postgrad10

rushfan wrote: »

The problem with that, as we subsequently discovered a couple of years later was that they were really disappointed that their pressies weren't wrapped.

I understand what you mean. Once you start, they’ll wonder why Santa stopped.

Santa once left the sticker of the bike shop he got my bike in! Clever 5 year old that I was figured out he must have purchased it in a neighboring town as his sleigh was too full.

Blaizes

Postgrad10 wrote: »

I understand what you mean. Once you start, they’ll wonder why Santa stopped.

Santa once left the sticker of the bike shop he got my bike in! Clever 5 year old that I was figured out he must have purchased it in a neighboring town as his sleigh was too full.

Ah so sweet!

argentum

Our kids used to go to mass on Christmas eve with my wife so I'd go on a journey to work to collect all the presents left there since they were bought.
I'd leave them in the toilet under the stairs,lock the door and tell them it was broken and the presents were never found.
My favourite thing when my eldest was young was that he loved pokemon and especially pikachu. I won a few of them in the amusement machines in the square and kept them in the attic.
Every Christmas eve i took the old tatty one from his bed when he was asleep and put a brand new in his arms and told him santa did it
For his 18th i gave him the 4 tatty ones that I'd put up in the attic.
He was amazed

pablo128

It's a waiting game now till they go asleep. Another hour should do it.

There's probably lads out in sheds as we speak, putting new bicycles together, or assembling little kitchens or the like. Putting stickers on crooked and trying desperately to straighten them.:pac:

_Brian

We stoppped putting chocolate in girls stockings in their rooms few years ago after one woke up, thankfully we got her back and she didn’t remember.

Herself took them off today to do a few messages and I got everything down from attic and locked in the study. Bike was retrieved from farm and is in back of my van outside.

They’re still awake here but we are just chilling having a nice glass of wine. Another 30-40 minutes should see coast clear.

This will be our last year, youngest is 11.

DvB

Just got everything down there now. My wife keeps watch while i carry them down, then I keep watch while she sorts them into their respective piles. 20 more minutes and we'll be done and off to bed.
Ours are 9 in january and reckon we're coming to the end of the santa days unfortunately, I'll miss running this gauntlet every Christmas eve.

Bigus

Santa set up a full size set of metal framed garden swings and see-saw for my kids one year in the dining room, and bunks beds another . He did very well to be so quiet and constructed them very well considering how drunk he was .

ratracer

I’m working tonight, so for the first time since my 13y.o was born, Mrs RR has to fly solo in the sleigh! I have every faith in her. Youngest is 10, so like others, it will likely be the last momentous Xmas for a while. I just hope I can get home before they wake in the morning!!

Over the years, I’ve had to take down plasterboard slabs from the garage walls to store/ recover items. That was almost trickier than some of the big builds we’ve had to do under varying stages of Christmas merriment!!

Happy Christmas all!!

NIMAN

Magic.

We were discussing this in my house earlier on.

I was told that when I was young, the spare bedroom was locked and all my presents were put into it. My brother (8 years older, so didn't believe in santa) went to bed at the same time as me, but got back up after I fell asleep. My dad was in the pub and had the key to the room.

So apparently my dad came home locked drunk, and they couldn't find the key. So they took turns keeping an eye on me to make sure I didn't wake, while they kicked in the door to the bedroom with the presents in it. I never woke up and although the door was in bits the next morning and barely on it's hinges, I never questioned it or passed any remarks.


Apparently the key was sitting on one of the stairs and they found it almost immediately after getting into the room :rolleyes:

Hoboo

Calpol. Lots n lots of glorious Calpol.

pablo128

The gas thing is I remember the folks creeping up and down the stairs with everything. Me and 2 of my brothers were well wide. The others would only have been babies. We would give them a while and creep down like ninjas about 2 or 3 in the morning. We had the presence of mind not to play with anything noisy but eventually one of the folks would hear us and run us back up to bed.

Good times.

Odyssey 2005

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Hey, I don't have kids yet but i'm curious as to what your tricks of the trade are for getting the presents to the tree on Christmas eve without them knowing?

This is how I found out Santa was fake incidentally - I stumbled across the presents one Christmas eve stocked up in another room in advance. I pretended I didn't. They were none the wiser.

Kids ears are fine tuned instruments on Christmas eve (mine were anyway) waiting for Santa.

So how is the mission accomplished in your house?

Happy to hear any disasters in this regard too. :cool:

P.S sorry if asked before, I didn't see a thread

Santy does it...its magic

Sunrise_Sunset

pablo128 wrote: »

The gas thing is I remember the folks creeping up and down the stairs with everything. Me and 2 of my brothers were well wide. The others would only have been babies. We would give them a while and creep down like ninjas about 2 or 3 in the morning. We had the presence of mind not to play with anything noisy but eventually one of the folks would hear us and run us back up to bed.

Good times.

I'm literally just finished creeping up and down the stairs about 8 times. My eldest woke just before and asked if Santa had been yet. But I still thought I'd better get a start as that could go on for hours. Hopefully we're all good.
We kept the toys hidden in the eaves of the attic bedroom.

pablo128

Sunrise_Sunset wrote: »

I'm literally just finished creeping up and down the stairs about 8 times. My eldest woke just before and asked if Santa had been yet. But I still thought I'd better get a start as that could go on for hours. Hopefully we're all good.
We kept the toys hidden in the eaves of the attic bedroom.

They know. You jumped the gun.

Fcuk it. Sit back and have a can or two.

The chan chan man

Just incase - delete this thread..

Blaizes

Just finished deliveries as well thank God no one woke can relax now.

Rub a Dub

Off topic but, there doesn't seem to have been a must have thing for kids this year. In recent years I remember everyone going mad for that Elsa doll and then the hatchimals.
Seems more chilled this year, with a good stock of everything.

michellie

Most of it is in the attic, we were supposed to take it all down and put it in his van but we just never got around to it with everything the past few days. The eldest is 11, she got a desk and that was built and is in the van. We will be ****tin taking it all down later.

11 year old was on snapchat earlier and seen that her aunt, my incredibly smart sister had put up a video of her sitting room with all the kids presents. 11 year old was asking wtf is going on and was freaking out that she needed to go to bed asap(we were in the middle of watching home alone)

Strazdas

I think children tend to be much heavier sleepers than adults, which is how parents can sneak things into position at the right time. You don't really hear of children being insomniacs and awake all night.