Moving presents on Xmas eve

[CloudPets]

I've currently got dc presents in my bedroom. Hidden in various places.

I'm starting to stress about Xmas eve night when I need to get them downstairs. Ds in particular is a very light sleeper. If I so much as put the landing light on he will ask me what I'm doing. I imagine he will be on even higher alert Xmas eve.

Also, baby is in my room and if I make too much noise they will wake up and cry until I comfort them. No doubt waking up all dc.

Dp will not be available to help.

What do other people do? It all just seems so stressful.

Could you move them earlier in the day to an easier to access place like the car or a downstairs cupboard? In a bin bag outside if only for a few hours?

Count yourself lucky - our kids have stockings in their bedrooms!!

Most of ours are in the car for easy moving

Get them in black bags and downstairs today or tomorrow morning. If your DC is young enough they won't think anything of it. I used to disguise mine as rubbish all the time.

Move earlier. Are you friendly with your neighbours? They might be OK with a bin bag of toys in their hall.

We have stockings too. Luckily I purchased duplicates so it's just a case of doing a quick switch in the dark. If ds wakes up whilst I'm doing it I will just tell him It had fell down and I was just picking it up.

There isn't anywhere downstairs that isn't too obvious.

DH finds a very urgent card that needs to go through someone’s door, or a trip to the co-op, or a walk - and DC get dragged out - usually late PM Xmas eve. I then move stuff about.

small things get put inside the washer and dryer with a towel over the front. Larger things go in the cupboard where the hoover and ironing board are.

if they hear me messing with the washer/ironing board late at night they wouldn’t think anything of it. In fact I’ve said previously ‘I won’t be up late myself tonight, I’ll just iron my top for tomorrow and I’ll be in bed’

job done.

You could change the narrative so Santa fills the stockings but presents are from you and then you don't have to sneak around.

We've always done that so Santa doesn't get all the credit and they can learn to appreciate the cost of things as they get older.

Plus it makes it much easier as minimal creeping around, things just go under the tree once they're wrapped.

When mine were young one of us would run a really nice bubble bath for them then they were so loud playing in the bathroom the other would move the presents downstairs. Then it was bedtime so they wouldn’t go down after their bath anyway.

This year I’ve decided I’m going to take the kids out whilst DH moves the gifts into the garage late Xmas Eve, then at bath time I’m going to transfer the gifts from the garage to the dining room so all I need to do is when I go to bed transfer them to the lounge. Last year was a nightmare my eldest DS decided he was too excited to sleep, midnight he was still awake and I hadn’t moved any gifts.

I guess if there is no possible solution to move them out of your room OP then you’re on your own now. Good luck.

My mum told me to buy two stockings each for this reason! Just a quick direct swap. Genius!

Woops that was supposed to reply to @holidaytimeatlast about the stockings being in the bedroom

How many presents do you have to move? We keep all our presents away until about today and then I'll let DS help me put family member ones under the tree - he's helped me wrap most of them, we just keep them away so they aren't in the way/cats don't take a fancy to the ribbons. All DS's gifts are in the loft in a big bag that will come down to the office tomorrow sometime and be hidden under a big blanket. Although to be honest once he's asleep he's out for the count so wouldn't notice us going in the loft despite the squeakiest ladder in the world.

I've kept large empty boxes in the hallway before and then before Xmas filled them with presents and taped them up. So hiding them in plain sight really.

Ours have always gone under the tree in advance so no sneaking required other than for stocking. As a kid it built the anticipation seeing the presents under the tree for a few days before Christmas and trying to guess what the packages were!

Our presents are already put under the tree. DC asked for it to be done like this. We used to do the scuttling around on Christmas Eve, but we now don’t. Personally, I like the idea of presents just appearing on Christmas Day, but I was outvoted on this. Only Stocking presents come from Santa and they do just appear on Christmas Day.

This is exactly what we're doing! DS is 3.5 but seems to fully understand the concept of Santa this year. His presents from us (and extended family) are all wrapped and under the tree already - we've slowly been adding to the pile as we buy more so they've been there for a while now.

Santa will fill the stocking which has a few small bits in. 😊

Mine are in the cupboard under the stairs with coats over them.
Hiding them in the car is a good idea.

This year until the garage roof started leaking we were going to put the gifts to the garage (we’ve previously lived in flats) to make it easier. Last Christmas my oldest didn’t really sleep after going to bed and then was up for good from 1am!!

What I’ve decided to do is get all the children upstairs for showers Christmas Eve pm and then very quickly put the bags under the living room table as the chairs block the view of the space underneath.

My youngest has just come to me with a completely different Father Christmas list so Christmas morning is going to be interesting!

This is another reason the presents downstairs are from us. So if they see them hidden or hear us taking them downstairs it doesn’t matter. They know we take down the presents before we go to bed. We always made sure we put our presents out earlier and long before we removed the mince pie and carrot and filled the stockings. The stocking presents we have in cloth bags so there is no rustling and we bring the stockings into our room, tip the presents in and put them back.

We move ours into the downstairs bathroom tonight.. I then lock it from the outside and tell my kids that daddy broke the toilet so it's out of use 🤣🤣🤣 they've never questioned it and it stays clean for when guests arrive Christmas Day! Winner winner.

We usually have this problem which means a very late night but this year dh is taking dc to visit his family so il be bring them downstairs and putting them in a separate room, everything is either in a box or bin bag just incase they are ever found

Mine are all in a black sack in back of car, I have no storage indoors whatsoever and my dd is terrible at finding things! All quite stressful, I'll be pleased when I can admit to her that Santa isn't real and there won't be as much sneaking around !!

Thank you all. Great ideas!
I could move some things from the cupboard under the stairs up to my bedroom, then use that space to put the presents. I will do that today so it's not so suspicious.

The stockings I do are fairly basic so I like to say Santa brings some bigger presents too.

If I do get caught I will say that these presents are from me and Santa will deliver a few more.

Thank you all again.

So when's this going to happen?

Ours are 19, 17 and 13 - we've yet to have that conversation.
None of them have ever asked, or hinted they know.

(I know they all know really, but no-one wants to be the one to say it out loud, just in case!)