We live in a super small house and it seems that every Christmas I struggle to keep the boys’ presents a surprise!
So I asked a bunch of Happy Home Fairy followers to give me their best Christmas present hiding spots. Here are 12 amazing ideas that I am excited to try this year!
Neighbor’s House
Ask your neighbor if they wouldn’t mind housing your kids’ presents at their place until Christmas. Or make a deal with a friend – you take her kids’ gifts and she takes yours. Also, if you have family in town, see if they will share a space in their garage with you!
Car Trunk
Keep all presents wrapped or double-bagged in the trunk of the car. If discovered, tell your kids that those items are donations.
Drying Machine
If you are the only person in the house who works with the laundry, the dryer is a safe place to temporarily stash a few items.
Rubbermaid Container
Many people said that they use the Christmas storage bins to hide presents since those bins are emptied for the season.
Garbage Bag
Pick up a bunch of the large red Target bags or use regular large garbage bags and tie everything up carefully. Leave in the garage in a tucked away spot. Make sure to tell your hubby so that he doesn’t accidentally throw them away as trash!
Luggage
Stash all presents in your luggage set. Bonus points if your luggage has locks!
Replace Doorknob
A reader suggested replacing your bedroom doorknob with one that locks on the outside with a key so that you can leave the room and know the gifts will be safe. This sounds like an idea to be used only in extremely nosy children situations.
Workplace
If you have an agreeable boss, see if he/she will let you store some gifts at the office.
Secret Labels
Many readers said that they wrap their gifts right away and put them under the tree with secret labels. For example, every gift is numbered and only you know who gets which number. Or you could give your kids reindeer names and label the presents accordingly. Just make sure to make a note of which reindeer name goes with which kid! This could also be fun with names of characters from the Christmas story in the Bible (Joseph, Mary, Wise Man #1, #2, #3, Shepherd, Donkey, etc.).
NOTE >> An idea to make sure the presents remain intact, tell your kids that any gift with evidence of tampering will be taken away. You shouldn’t have any problems!
Hamper
Another suggestion was to hide presents at the bottom of a hamper. Pile lots of clothes on top.
Closet
Tuck gifts on the top shelves of your closets or in the cleaning supply cabinet (where SURELY no one will look except you). 😉
Child’s Bedroom
A few people said that they like to hide presents in their child’s own bedroom because your kids would never think to check there in the first place! It’s too obvious!
How do YOU hide presents? I would LOVE to know!
Joyfully,
Julie 🙂
Hi Julie,
I just love your posts, ideas and suggestions. You are truly inspiring and I’m sorry I don’t always have the time to write you a comment, but I want you to know your website is truly appreciated! Congratulations on the birth of the new baby. As a mother of three boys as well, I wish you strength, energy and patience.
We always hid the items in doubled up plastic grocery or garbage bags, on the bottom of the closet – top shelf of our shoe rack, right under the long-hanging clothes. The parents closet is usually looked at by children as somewhere you ‘don’t go’. I have even had a brain freeze (when they were older) and sent them to my closet to get something for me, yet they never noticed them. The placement is perfect because they ‘think’ that they can see everything, and that means they don’t look any further. My hubby calls it ‘hiding in plain sight’ and was always amazed that it worked. LOVELY!
A variation of the “coded presents” that I’ve used is to create & save your labels in the iOS Notes app or voice memos app. (i.e. Merry Christmas! Please hand this package to Connor!) Save each “label” separately. Download a QR code generator for free on the iOS App Store. Use it to transfer your notes into scannable QR codes for the gifts.
If you’re using your voice memos, there are numerous websites that create QR codes that automatically play your voice “label” for all to hear when scanned. Personally, I’ve used Vocaroo.com because you can upload your recording from your phone. If you’re using a PC, you can record your voice “labels” without having to use your phone.
Tips:
•When your QR code is generated, I strongly suggest printing & labeling the gift immediately. Otherwise, you may mix the gifts/labels.
•Make sure you test each QR code using a free QR code reader app before affixing it to the package.
I have room in the house to store gifts, but my problem is I forget where I stash them. I guess I don’t really have room to put them all in the *same place*. This year, I’m just putting them in a big cardboard box in a corner in my bedroom (although I think I’ll switch it out for a large Rubbermaid bin, based on the tip above. My kids are older (the youngest is 11), and they don’t really get in to things as much as they used to, so this works, even though it’s kind of ugly.
At some point, I’ll wrap them and put them under the tree, maybe using code, or I might triple wrap them–wrap and label with the child’s name, then put in a larger box, wrap again and put someone else’s name on, then put in a larger box and wrap again, putting yet another someone’s name on the box. No one will know who the gift is actually for until it’s completely unwrapped.
I’ve done it by one bow color per child.
I put items that won’t be affected by temperature in the crawl space of my house.
This year I’ve been hiding mine in plain sight. I already had some cardboard boxes parked in a corner as we have been organizing, so I just started adding the new Amazon boxes to the pile and so far, no one seems to notice. Lol. My cousin has a similar approach. She is expecting a baby in January and is just telling her 5 year old that the growing mound of cardboard boxes is “stuff for the baby.”
I used the already mentioned luggage storage when my kids were little and they never caught on. Now that I am a grandma with grandkids in town, I don’t have to worry about the Santa presents. I have an extra bedroom where I store their presents and the Christmas crafts that I have planned for the month of December. I decorate the door with stickers, tinsel, bells, and a big sign that says KEEP OUT! CHRISTMAS SURPRISES INSIDE! It drives them crazy but they don’t peek, and if they try to, I hear the bells jingling before they get too far in the door.
My kids are adults now but when they were younger. I didn’t put names on packages. I distinguished each by giving a certain color, I.e. daughter prez had pink in wrapping paper, oldest boy liked blue so his had mostly blue, etc. worked like a charm