No kid will look for gifts in the clothes hamper

Tara’s kids start searching the house for hidden gifts in November, knowing mom starts shopping on Black Friday.

At 11, 13, and 15, they’ve had years to sniff out all her best spots. She’s run out of ideas.

She sent me an email asking where I hide presents.

Maybe my child wasn’t particularly bright. But I didn’t have to work that hard to hide Sawyer’s gifts.

When he was 3, I hid a monster truck the size of a dishwasher by throwing a blanket over it in my bedroom and putting a couple of picture frames on top. Sawyer never glanced at it.

I got more creative as he got older, putting Lego sets, identifiable with a single shake, in a suitcase in the closet.

I hid small things in my underwear drawer. (No self-respecting kid will dig among his mom’s underwear. Eww.)

Some parents stash presents in their cars. But I don’t have a garage, and I don’t trust my car alarm.

I could have hidden gifts in the clothes hamper in my kid’s bedroom because God knows he never lifted the lid.

Or under the kitchen sink, where I keep cleaning supplies.

Or in the dishwasher.

You could try the neighbors. We kept a ping-pong table until late one Christmas Eve. Another year, I said no to hiding a puppy for a week. (That’s like asking to keep a toddler until it’s pottytrained.)

A good spot is the box you store the artificial tree in.

Or you could wrap them but not put name tags on them. (Assign each kid a different wrapping paper so you remember who gets what.)

That’s the other reason I didn’t get too creative.

I’d forget where I put something and months later come across a Stomp Rocket hidden behind books in a bookcase.

It was fine, though. I usually found them just in time for his birthday.