Christmas Jail

It's difficult to keep secrets in a small house full of kids, so when I was little, my parents instituted "Christmas/Birthday Jail". What this means is that when it comes time to wrap presents, we were allowed to do whatever we wanted except go into the designated wrapping room (usually their bedroom).The concept of declaring their intentions eliminated the mystic sense of secrecy that causes kids to dig and ruin surprises. Also has a side effect of guaranteed quiet time/privacy :)As an adult I'm extending this: Santa isn't free, and he's not cheap. "No, we can't get a dozen new toys today because we won't have any money left to pay Santa. He has to feed all those elves, you know."We do stock up and hide presents around the house until the day comes, and fortunately they haven't been discovered yet. However in case they are, our explanation is that Santa's Workshop works like Amazon: daughter tells us what she wants, we "submit" the order, Santa fills it with the items that he feels she deserves, and they arrive within a reasonable time. Some items are on back-order, and other kids don't put their orders in on time or change them at the last minute. That's why Santa has to rush around on Christmas Eve to deliver all those "late" toys. The more toys he can deliver early, the less work he has to do later.I figure it's a lesson in procrastination (laziness on your part should not constitute an emergency on Santa's), but mostly I don't want to have to claim what she found as being from us then buy more presents so that she'll have something from Santa just because she found our stash. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2gNxnXD