No Peeking!

Having a gift closet is a wonderful way to keep your gifts all in one place, but one question often comes up when I talk about gift closets – how do you keep the kids from seeing their gifts? The solution to this can be simple, and there are various ways to accomplish the kids from finding their gifts.

The first way is to create a second gift closet just for your children’s gifts. When my children were younger, I kept their gifts at the top of the master bedroom closet, inside suitcases! So the idea is to find a place in your home that is out of the reach of your children, or someplace they would never think to look, creating a unique, separate gift closet for them.

Another way to hide gifts, especially as the children get older or for larger ticket items, is to find an alternative place to store the items. Many people swap with neighbors, keep items at family members’ homes, or rent a climate-controlled storage unit to keep their children from finding the gifts. One word of caution, though – if you store it at anyone else’s home, make sure the children there do not know about the gifts. Kids are less likely to keep a secret – and yes, I speak from experience!

Ever thought of hiding gifts in plain sight? I have done this for years with my children. I am fortunate to have other children around the same age as mine that we purchase gifts for; therefore, I simply tell my children the item in the gift closet is for another child. Many times they forget about it by Christmas and are excited to see it as a gift for themselves.

The final suggestion to hide your purchases from your children is to use lay-a-way. This type of program is becoming popular again and allows you to buy all your gifts, pay a deposit, pay some each week/month, and when it is paid for completely, you can take it home. Usually, the date to have it paid off and taken out of lay-a-way is the first part of December, allowing you to schedule your pick-up around when you will have time to go home and wrap while the children are off doing another activity. Lay-a-way is an excellent way to hide larger items for an extended period, as well as a way to stretch your holiday budget.