This year, one of my goals was to stay on budget when it comes to Christmas!  In order to achieve this goal, I knew I had to get a little more organized (this came to me when I was getting ready for our garage sale and came across some toys that I had bought months prior for Christmas)!

Since my children are still young and don’t snoop around, I cleared off one shelf in our storage room (they are also scared of the storage room) and put three boxes and a bag on it (four boxes wouldn’t fit 🙁 !)  There is a box (or bag) for each child, I do not have them marked, but I know their intention (my oldest is starting to read, if he saw something with his name on it, he would snoop)!  I also got four clear containers with snap on lids for stocking stuffers!  This way I can easily glance at the clear boxes and see who I still need stuff for!

Now this next tip, I have done for years!  Each year I pick out a different kind of wrapping paper for each child and wrap all their presents in the same wrapping paper!  I do not mark the presents, I just remember whose gifts are wrapped in which paper!  Depending on the wrapping paper, sometimes they can figure it out and sometimes they can’t!  This will also help with snoopers later on, cause they won’t know which presents are theirs!  I usually wrap presents at the beginning of December!  I do have a friend whose kids are older and they like to snoop at their presents, so she has to wrap them right away when she brings them home!  She has learned to first wrap the present in dark tissue paper, this way it is almost impossible to snoop without leaving evidence because tissue paper is so fragile!  Then she wraps them in regular wrapping paper.  She uses dark tissue paper so that you cannot see through it!  I thought this was a great idea!

Santa presents are always wrapped in paper that have a picture of Santa on it.  These obviously have to be marked!  (I used to take the rest of the paper to school and have the kids tear it up, cut it up, or used it in projects.  Now that I am staying at home, I use up the Santa wrapping paper from the previous year to wrap presents for those who are not in our immediate family!)  This way the “evidence” is gone!

What are some of your Christmas tricks?