Necessity

In my plans for this 31 Days of Christmas, I knew I would write about the necessity of creative trickery when it came to attempting to keep an element of surprise in Christmas.  After all what kid doesn't want to know what they are getting before they get it??  And sometimes it is impossible to keep things hidden.  Although I liked to think my children wouldn't be looking, I knew they did.  I even had an un-wrapper who would then re-wrap.  She was good that way.  So I had to take drastic measures and thus creative trickery was born.  It was the only way.  You can read about it here.  I did love that little tradition.  But as the years went by it became harder and harder to think up a new twist.  One year I had a friend do Japanese characters for me; that was confusing for all of us.  The year I just mixed up the names was priceless.  To make it interesting I included Mr. Man in the mix of mixed up names.  On Christmas morning when the gifts were divided up, there sat Son Number 2 with just 2 or 3 little gifts, yet his father looked like he hit pay dirt!  "Wow, Dad Santa was good to you!"  Of course I then announced that each person's little pile was actually not theirs!  

Necessity is after all the Mother of Invention!