Earlier today, I caught my daughter going through everyone’s stocking. I know she’s anxiously waiting for Christmas, but I had to again, tell her that she has to wait for Christmas day to open presents, and to also leave the stockings alone as they’re not all for her; she didn’t bother getting into hers, which is on the other side of the tree, with her name on it. I thought I had put them up high enough, but I’m guessing she stood on the back of the couch and got them down, then dumped them all out. I know she particularly liked what my nephew is getting, as she was wearing it. I had to tell her that was for Hunter, which she put back with no arguments. The two of them are really close, like brother and sister.

She still hasn’t found my new hiding spot for all the presents, thank goodness. Guess the third time is the charm, or maybe it’s the really heavy container I put in front of the closet door for good measure. If I have a problem moving that thing, she won’t be able to budge it an inch. Maybe I should knock on wood…*knock, knock, knock*…wait the desk is fake wood…

Each time she found my hiding spot, she would open all the presents, carefully putting the empty packages into the trash can, then run around playing with everything she got out. I wasn’t home when this had happened, or it would’ve been prevented when she got too close to where I was hiding everything. When I walked inside the house, she immediately rushed up to me and showed me what she got with all the excitement of a four year old. Of course I knew where she got the toys and inside I was screaming ‘NO!”, but on the outside, I was smiling and just agreed to let her have them. There was no way I was going to take toys away from a child with autism. So, I just simply found a new hiding spot for the next round of presents, twice.

I didn’t buy that much for her to open each time I had moved to each hiding spot, but now that it’s closing in on the big day, there’s no way she’s going to get into them now, Mommy is broke, er, I mean Santa is broke, so he put this heavy 20 gallon container in front of the door, hiding all gifts from small and crafty hands. I’m so lucky she can’t read this, lol!

I was talking to one of my cousins, and we both agreed that peeking at our presents before Christmas, runs in our family, so I know I’m getting paid for my raising. My sisters and I would open our presents early. Our parents would put a few under the tree and it would bug us, not knowing what was in those wrapped packages. I had unwrapping presents down to a science. Steaming the tape just so and then peal it off without tearing the wrapping. Though once we got a peek at the contents, we weren’t at all happy, so when Christmas arrived, we weren’t all that excited to open anything. Let’s just say, kids aren’t all that happy to receive clothes for Christmas, that wasn’t what we told Santa what we wanted. So what happened? It wasn’t until later when we found out that our little scheme wasn’t much of a secret and that was why the early presents under the tree were nothing but clothes.

Well played. 

Now I know how to deal with that when my daughter gets a little bit older, but how to deal with her now is the fun part. I can’t even get her to leave the ornaments on the tree alone. She takes off with them, plays with them, then I can’t find the things when I notice they’re gone. Usually, they’re hanging on the Venetian blinds in the living room, but I guess she got tired of me taking them down and putting them back on the tree because they’re now MIA.