Christmas Hide And Seek

We have a new game in the house at the moment and I’m not very keen on it … Christmas Hide And Seek! We hide the presents whilst the girls do some surreptitious seeking.

Oh how I miss the carefree days of Christmas magic. When we could store presents around the house … stuffed on top of wardrobes, under the beds and in cupboards.

A few years back eldest told me she’d seen her Dr Who Lego in the cupboard at the top of the stairs Christmas Eve. I managed to get round that by telling her that Father Christmas starts to magically put presents in houses on Christmas Eve to help him get everything to everyone in time.

Last year she found the picture and reindeer she’d made Father Christmas in a drawer a few days after Father Christmas had been. That was a trickier one and I blamed Mr Dad. I told her that Mr Dad had thought her art work was so lovely he’d wanted to keep it for himself. Eldest was ‘mad’ at him for quite a few days!!

Their natural inquisitiveness has been growing and over the last year and we’ve found them rummaging in all the nooks and crannies they previously left alone.

So this year we’re taking no chances. Everything has been put straight into the attic … a place they don’t go.

But it’s not just the physical presents that have to be hidden.

The receipts have had to be hidden (paper and electronic). Lists on computers have had to be given weird file names (this has confused me and Mr Dad at times) and great care has had to be taken with any browser windows left open for gift reference.

We’ve had to work hard this year to keep the magic alive and at the moment all three girls still believe. But it’s a wavering belief.

In a few years the ‘Magic of Christmas’ will disappear and be replaced by just ‘Christmas’. A time when my little girls will start walking in the ‘real world‘.

So for a few more years, I will jump hoops to keep the magic alive. For when they lose the ‘Magic’ of Christmas so do I …

And that’s a rather sad thought!