where/how do you hide Christmas gifts?

[♥ms.pacman♥]

DS has already discovered a few gifts in our closet! ARGH! think he's starting to figure out that's where we keep the toys we don't want him to have yet.

So, any tips? Do you wrap them soon after you get them? I think if they were wrapped DS would not know what they were and would not bother. But then i'd want to keep track of what's what. The other thing is, we could put them in various parts of our house, but its' happened before where we hid something really well and then forgot later and couldn't find it ourselves...

[hoodlims]

Attic, garage, and trunk. Or you could just start wrapping immediately after he goes to bed.

[twowhat?]

We plan to use the attic, because the door to get in there is childproofed:)

[crl]

My closet, top shelf inside a storage box.

Catherine

[kara97210]

Our new house has a crawl space area in the attic - with a little (1/2 size) door. It's almost like it was made to hid gifts. At our last place we used the closet under the stairs, although I can't imagine that working for older kids. We hide them unwrapped and wrap everything Christmas Eve.

I work with a woman who (along with her older brothers) used to find their Christmas gifts and unwrap and then re-wrap them when their parents were out. It's how they all found out the truth about Santa.

[lalasmama]

Let's see... we've done: the trunk, the master bedroom, and friends' homes. This year is a bit of each of the above as well. DD seems a little unaware of things... like last year, she SAW the scooter, and said, "Look mom, it's a scooter in our cart!" and easily accepted "Oh, yes, that's for a kid without a scooter yet." In fact, 3 weeks ago, Fred Meyer (Kroger) was doing a BOGO1/2 and I stocked up on kid makeup (which she asked for in her letter to Santa). She says, "Wow, Mama, you are going to be beautiful with all that makeup!" She didn't even seem to formulate the idea that it might be for her. When she was young, we told her just about everything was "for a kid who doesn't have that" and she accepted it easily, without ever connecting the dots to think "Oh, gee, I don't have that--is it for me???"

[twowhat?]

I work with a woman who (along with her older brothers) used to find their Christmas gifts and unwrap and then re-wrap them when their parents were out.

My brother and I TOTALLY did this. We got pretty darned good about working with all kinds of tape.

[buddyleebaby]

The top shelf in the closet in the laundry room. Not wrapped but still in the boxes they were shipped in.

However, my kids are all still Santa believers and therefore do not yet deliberately search for hidden gifts. When they start, I will probably keep them in the trunk or have them shipped to my mom's house.

[maestramommy]

We put them unwrapped in non-descript shopping bags, on higher shelves in our closets. The kids never notice. We wrap them the night before.

[lmwbasye]

Well, it definitely helps that I shop Amazon and other places year-round so it's not unusual at all to have brown boxes everywhere, LOL! We also do actively shop sales and things for needier children and the boys help with that. So, when I happen to be getting something for them, as a PP said, they just accept that it's for another child and do not consider that it could be for them. They may ask if they can have one too and I'll just say something like, "I hope so but we'll have to ask Santa."

So, hiding is usually in boxes on top shelf of closet or in our gift closet. I did just hide a bunch of things in an empty foot locker that DH wasn't allowed to fly overseas last minute and had to repack into something else. Thanks, DH!!!

[♥ms.pacman♥]

I work with a woman who (along with her older brothers) used to find their Christmas gifts and unwrap and then re-wrap them when their parents were out. It's how they all found out the truth about Santa.

DH and his brother totally did this. It would often start when BIL would snoop in MIL's purse, get her checkbook and look at the balance and see, "Oh, she spent $40 at Toys R Us, must be a toy somewhere." And then the hunt for the toys began. This was back in the day of course, when people actually bought everything at B&M stores and paid with checks. Now I guess a kid can just hack through your credit card account online to try to find the truth. LOL

and i've heard of the trunk thing (smart, bc then the kids can't be accessing it when you are out). prob is though we have a minivan. :) I guess we could keep it in our sedan. there's a ton of stuff though.. not all for DS, but for our nephews, niece etc (DS just sees a toy and wants it).

[kijip]

We have an under the stair closet...that has a water heater in it up front but angles all the way around the corner of the stairs, so it all goes back there, behind the various junk that'd we keep in that closet year round. I figure we will have to get sneakier later on but this has worked thus far. Also we learned that we have to keep it all on one place...or we will lose it. Seriously, I bought a doll for my niece last year, forgot about it, got her something else and then long after the holiday found the doll under my dresser. This is only one example. So now, it all goes in the same spot.

[new_mommy25]

We do the closet under the stairs and under my bed. The closet under the stairs is FULL of the stuff so I just throw the bags behind everything. There's no way the kids can get to it without climbing, lol. Obviously this won't work when they're older. I realized today that I can no longer do under my bed. I have the xbox in my room and today DS was looking for the controller. He looked under the bed and all around. Luckily he did not notice the books I had under there, but I'm sure he would have noticed had there been toys.

My sister and I used to totally peek at our presents! We would peel the tape off the sides and slip the present out of the wrapper. We were pretty good. :) My parents never put their presents to us out. They would be under the tree Christmas morning. I know that when we were older and more wise my Dad used to keep all our presents at work in a closet. One year they were all stolen. Luckily they paid with Amex so they were replaced. After that I'm not sure where they hid them?

[overcome]

We put them unwrapped in non-descript shopping bags, on higher shelves in our closets. The kids never notice. We wrap them the night before.

I do the same thing, except I don't wrap Santa gifts.

[georgiegirl]

On the top shelf of the office closet. That room is blocked off, and the kids never go in there. For now that works. When they get older I will have to reevaluate.

My parents kept our presents on the master closet. I remember finding a Lego set for myself when I was younger. I never unwrapped anything though.

[jgenie]

I put them in different parts of the house - hall closet up high, office closet, office storage room, basement closet. My kids are little and there are lots of areas of the house that we don't use so that makes it easier. I have a spreadsheet that lists what I have and WHERE it's located.

[KrisM]

In the storage area of our basement, inside large Uhaul moving boxes. Right now, my basement is off limits to the kids because I have 60 boxes of Santa Shop stuff spread out all over, so they can't possibly get there anyway.

I'm sure we'll have to get more creative in a couple years, and I don't know where that will be.

[elliput]

In a basement storage room with a keyed lock. DD finally figured out how to work a knob cover, so I had to put lock on the rooms in the basement that she does not need to be getting into. We also have a cargo trailer which works really well for storing large items.

[karstmama]

i have a 'prize closet' that all gifts go into, on high shelves. ds is still very oblivious.

[DietCokeLover]

I work with a woman who (along with her older brothers) used to find their Christmas gifts and unwrap and then re-wrap them when their parents were out. It's how they all found out the truth about Santa.

I used to do this. I was extremely skilled at using a metal nail file to slide under the tape. No one knew for years that I did this.

[JTsMom]

I used to do the high shelf in the closet in bags/boxes or covered with clothing. I've also done the trunk, but have gotten busted with that a few times. Now I try to ship as much as possible to DH's workplace. The rest is in this little storage/mini-attic off of our master bath. We put a lock on it b/c it's unfinished, and we didn't want DS falling through the ceiling. Works perfectly for gifts, and as a bonus, I can lock two sets of doors if I need to keep DS out while I rummage around, and I can pull it out at night to wrap stuff undetected.

I used to be able to let him come shopping with me, but now, he's so onto anything. I suspect our Santa years are numbered at this point.

[snowbunnies300]

My gifts are out in the open sitting on a bed in the spare bedroom. Kids walk in and out all of the time. All three are autistic and don't notice them at all.

I very much love Christmas. My kids could care less. Just another day. Just another month. DS1 has to be forced to sit down and open gifts. He usually becomes upset and we get just a couple pictures of him ripping off a small piece of paper. He only likes gifts that he "knows". He has to have played with it or it is a replacement of one that has been broken. DS2 is more willing to open the gifts. I am hopeful after his last birthday this summer that he understands gift opening. DS3 is more like DS1. We will see how it goes this year. So far there are no replacement gifts. All are new, never seen before.

This year we are traveling. Christmas Eve is at my parents home 125 miles from where we live. Then get up on Christmas day and drive about 175 to SIL's home. Then 50 miles home the same day.

[speo]

Our garage has lots of things stored in it in lots of boxes. So I just get a very large box or 2 and start putting the gifts in there. The walk right by it every day. I used to put it up in a box in our closet, but that took too much effort to get it out. Some toys were too big for that also. Now when UPS comes I just pick up the box and take it to the garage. Then when they are asleep I empty it into our larger box.

[gatorsmom]

I keep them in their shipping boxes even after I've opened them. I'll even wrap them and put them back in their boxes then stack the boxes in my officemor on the porch and tell the kids that they are for dad's work.

Sometimes if the kids see me wrapping a box (I wrap at night after they are in bed but if they wake up and come out to the kitchen they could see something) I'll say that I'm giving that gift to one of their cousins (they have lots of cousins and so do I. We still buy for each other). I only do that in a pinch, though because sometimes they get upset that they wanted that gift. Then I tell them that Santa might bring them one too!

Eta: btw, this is a really fun thread! I love all these stories!