A new Christmas tradition: Numbered presents!

[RegGuheert]

Last year MomsintheGarden came up with an idea that solved an annual problem at the Guheert household: How to keep the little Guheerts from opening their presents before Christmas.

 

In the past, we had put a stop to this problem by not putting presents out until Christmas Eve night. But we had always thought the tree looked pretty naked without any presents.

 

Last year MomsintheGarden wrapped presents while I was away on a business trip. Since she wasn't sure which present went to which Guheert, she numbered each present and made a list matching numbers to presents. This turned out to be a GREAT idea! It solved two main problems:

 

1) It allows us to put the presents out early since none of the children can tell which presents are theirs.

2) It throttles the most notorious hyper-Christmas-present-unwrappers among the Guheert children, since none of them can identify which presents are theirs without the code. This way, they can pick up a gift, tell us the number and we can tell them to whom they should give it.

 

This worked so well last year that we are doing it again this Christmas. I don't know if this would help anyone else here, but this will likely be a tradition for many years to come in our home.

 

Merry Christmas from the Guheerts!

[jujsky]

LOL! You just reminded me of a family Christmas story from my mom's family. My mom was one of 5 children, and every year to keep the kids from knowing which gift belonged to which child, my grandfather would mark each child's gifts with a different code. He kept a secret code list hidden where only he could find it.

 

Worked out great, except for that year he lost the list ;) My uncles were opening up dolls and dresses, and my mom and aunt were opening up trucks and guns. :lol:

 

Make sure you keep that list safe!

[WiseOwlKnits]

We do that too! I've also done color-coded bows. DH is gold, I'm blue, DD is red, and DS is purple. I love that the kids can't tell which present belongs to which person. :)

[mom to 3 boys & 1 girl]

Your post just brought back some great memories for me! My mom did this one year when I was a kid and we had so much fun! She went a little crazy with her numbering system and it took us hours to open all of our gifts that year.:lol:

 

We still do Santa here but I am definitely going to do this in the future.

[Ferdie]

We do almost the same thing. We assign two of Santa's reindeer names, (Dasher, Dancer, Prancer...) for each child and use those names on their gifts. We keep the names a secret until Christmas morning. They have so much fun guessing which reindeer they are the week before Christmas.

Edited December 6, 2009 by Ferdie

[Daisy]

We've always done this. It's a carry over from my childhood. I pick a different code every year. Last year it was names of reptiles and birds. The year before it was countries of the Northern and Southern Hemisphere (they never figured out that one). This year, I'm doing parts of speech.

 

Always lots of fun for the children to spend hours trying to figure out my code.

[RegGuheert]

We've always done this. It's a carry over from my childhood. I pick a different code every year. Last year it was names of reptiles and birds. The year before it was countries of the Northern and Southern Hemisphere (they never figured out that one). This year, I'm doing parts of speech.

 

Always lots of fun for the children to spend hours trying to figure out my code.

Homeschooling Moms!! :lol:

[ChristusG]

Okay....I think I'm totally going to go back through all the gifts I've already wrapped and number them instead! I'll just stick a sticky gift tag number over the ones with their names already on them. It'll be a blast on Christmas morning. I'll keep the list, someone will call out a number, and that person will open that gift. Thanks for the great idea!!

[Jen500]

Sounds like a great idea! My family sometimes hides a special present (maybe too bulky to wrap) and then sends the recipient on a cryptic note search from room to room to find the present. Or we try to disguise a present by adding something to make the box rattle.

[Irene Lynn]

The first year my mother tried something different, she wrote the names very tiny on the bottom of the package near the seam. I got that one figured out. Then she tried using numbers. I got that again. Of course, I always knew almost every present under the tree and sometimes all of them, so no system beat me. That was the fun of Christmas, trying to figure each one out or to look inside VERY carefully.

 

Last year I used a different paper or grouping of papers for each person. My dh got the papers with gold in them and my dd's primary color was red and ds's were primarily green.

[RegGuheert]

Last year I used a different paper or grouping of papers for each person.

That's what we USED to do: Each person got presents wrapped in the same type of paper. The problem was that once someone figured out what paper was theirs, they knew *all* the presents that were theirs. One year we awoke one day before Christmas to find all of of the presents wrapped in a particular type of paper were unwrapped. Being the clever sleuths that we are, we quickly identified and apprehended the culprit! :lol:

 

Just to be clear, in our system, each *package* has a different number on it. In this way, no one even knows how many packages they are getting.

 

One funny this year: After we brought the first few presents down and put them under the tree, we found a couple of our children with dice. They were rolling the dice to see who would get which present! :D

[Karen_OK]

I did the numbering system and few years ago and it drove my kids crazy:lol:. I loved it.

[Barmax]

I have been doing something a bit similar but with a twist.  My immediate family exchanges a lot of gifts every Christmas.  It's a number system PLUS putting another set of the numbers in a hat.  It works like this:  I print out #'s 1 thru 50.  Each gift giver in my family would get approx. 25 numbers.  They can use some of them, all of them, give back the leftovers, or ask for more if needed.  As each person wraps their gifts, they put a regular gift tag on the box but instead of writing the person's name on the gift, they write a number.  They get out their secret list of #'s, & write down who gets what #.  I cut each # into a small piece of paper, stick it in a hat and then Christmas morning, we take turns pulling out a # from the hat.  Then, everyone checks their list to see if that was their gift they wrapped & then check to see who it belongs to. (I may have used #'s 1 thru 20, my husband may use 21 thru 40, etc...)  Then that person has to hunt for that gift under the tree.  Sometimes they find it right away, sometimes it's hiding all the way in the back.  It stretches out the gift unwrapping part & the whole family really has fun doing it this way.