Christmas Parenting Fails.

[Stabbitha]

Inspired my the worst parenting fails thread. Mine is Christmas themed and too light hearted for that thread.

I have a tradition of wrapping on Christmas eve, with each child having their own wrap design.

Last year at 1am Christmas Day, I ran out of wrap before the last present for one child when I still had loads for the other. I panicked and gave the last gift to the wrong child on purpose so I didn't mess up my system.

Luckily they were 2 and 5 and I do stocking fillers last so not too horrific but still.

This year we are doing it differently.

I had wrapped up all the presents and I was feeling quite pleased with myself when I sat down for something to eat.

Then I heard a crying noise. I must have accidentally activated one of the toys. The next 20 or so minutes was spent holding presents to my ear and trying to locate the traitorous toy.

Not me but a friend told me that when she was little her sister had several things the same in her stocking 3x piggy bank, 2x hair brush etc and her and her other sister didn't have as much- her mum quickly said that Father Christmas must have accidentally dropped them down the chimney and they got muddled. Years later she discovered her mum had done the stockings after a couple of bottles of wine!

We had bought the kids chocolate oranges every year. One year they all seemed sick of them as they were left for ages before they finally got eaten last with one kid never even eating there's and all of them trying to trade them with each other. The next year we bought alternatives.

This was an error. There was such outcry I had to go find some of the bastards in Tesco on Boxing Day

When Grandma killed Father Christmas.
We were staying with the grandparents in Australia. The kids hung their stockings on Christmas Eve afternoon. Gran came over to me and asked what each kid would like from a selection of little stationary items, pens, erasers etc. Then Gran went to the stockings and started stuffing things into them right in front of the kids!
One child started crying. Part of their childhood ended right there. :(

I have also put gifts in the wrong stocking so one child ended up with the other's gift. Last year at about 11am I found a couple of Santa presents lost in my bedroom that I had forgotten about. I bought a 3 pack of something but have 2 DC, a few days before Christmas wrapped 2 and put 1 in each stocking, accidentally left the third downstairs where DC found it, denied all knowledge of what it was or where it had come from.