It’s that time of year, parents! You’re back from Black Friday with cart-fuls of toys, video games, tablets, phones, TVs, and all the other stuff we wind up spending too much on around Black Friday.
But hey, it’s all to make the family happy, right? Even if your holiday shopping is done with, you’ve suddenly got a new problem to face down: where are you going to keep all these things?
Hiding presents is a time-honored tradition among parents, and a seemingly endless struggle: as more kids get technologically savvy and wise to their parents’ tricks, the quest to hide presents from prying eyes gets ever harder.
If you’re home from your Black Friday shopping and suddenly need to figure out where you’re going to put everything, here’s a couple tricks we’ve picked up over the years!
Just leave them in the trunk: This won’t work with more temperature-sensitive items like electronics (unless you’re one of those lucky devils who lives somewhere where it’s really nice out all year), and it depends on the kind of car you drive (ie not SUVs or hatchbacks), but there’s a lot of stuff you can just leave in the trunk. Your kids will never look in there because they’ll think they’ll have to help bring the groceries in, and you can keep stuff in there no sweat!
Buried in the home office: Especially if they have their own computers and stuff to play with, kids hate the home office - it’s too boring and stuffy, and it reminds them too much of the homework they have to do. Make some room in your home office furniture to stash gifts in the most boring room of the house, and your kids will flee at the very thought of going in there.
The underwear drawer: Trust us. Kids will never look in there out of sheer embarrassment, particularly if you have sons of a certain age. (Double points if you hide them in dad’s underwear drawer.) Clear out some room in your bedroom dresser and cover their presents in your...unmentionables!
Under the bed: It’s a time-honored tradition, but one that will still work with a few tweaks. Try to keep them in a gift box from a store they’d never be interested in (you know, like clothes stores) or in a garbage bag and pretend it’s some old junk you didn’t throw out when you moved.
Travel bags: Kids aren’t going to care what’s in your duffel bag or suitcase unless they know you’re headed off on a big family vacation - use this opportunity to stash some stuff in your favorite suitcase and keep it safe from curious eyes!
Right in front of them: If your kid fancies themselves to be the clever sort, a good way to avoid prying hands is to make it way too obvious that it’s a present. Leave a pile of unmarked boxes on a closet shelf or under a table somewhere. Kids won’t think it’s a present because they feel like they don’t have to work for it.
Leave a decoy: In a similar vein, you can go a long way by providing a distraction. Leave some empty, obvious looking boxes in a place the kids think you’re going to hide presents (a closet, the attic, the basement, etc) and watch them sink with disappointment when it turns out that shoebox you set left there is actually full of...shoes. It’s a short-term disappointment, sure, but imagine how glad they’ll be when they get their real presents on the big day!
Got any other tips for stashing your presents away? Leave them in the comments - the comment you leave might just save another parent weeks of headaches!