Patience, My Child.

I don't know what I was thinking! My Mom recently sent a box of gifts for me to wrap! I have always wrapped my own gifts, for as long as I can remember! I don't mind! I like to wrap presents. So, anyway, she sent a box of gifts from Arkansas for the kids. I wrapped them while the toddler was napping. She is starting to understand what this Christmas business is all about. But she doesn't realize that what you give is suppose to be a secret. I didn't want her to tell the boys what I wrapped. And they would ask her to tell them. She wouldn't know any better. I wrapped the presents, placed them under the tree just so I could see how pretty it looked with gifts under it. Ahhhh! So beautiful. Then I got sidetracked by something. Could've been the dryer or something shiny! I'm easily distracted. Anyway, the gifts got left under the tree instead of hidden in a cabinet where they were safe from the toddler.

When the toddler, Miss E, woke up she discovered the presents and was so happy! Instant forehead slap! I explained to her that we had to wait for Santa to come and bring her a gift before we could open the ones under the tree! She seemed to be Ok with that. Whew! Well, not for long! I tromped off to the bedroom to put away laundry and while I was doing that the brothers tag teamed her and put the idea in her head to "tell Mama you want to open a present!". I love my boys but I think the influence they have over this child is criminal. That was the beginning of a horrible evening! For hours she could not be persuaded to wait! I wouldn't back down. I decided to leave the gifts under the tree instead of hiding them away the first chance I got. I'm trying to teach her that "No" means "Ain't happening! No matter how hard you scream! So get over it!"........Eventually, she calmed down and stopped screaming "Mama Mean!". Bedtime rolled around, I fell asleep, she stayed awake and the next thing I knew I woke up to "Thank you Santa Claus!"....................



Apparently she got into the snacks too!



Oh! NO! I forgot about the gifts under the tree! She got up and decided to open them! She ran into the bedroom, flipped on the light and said "Mama, look! My hat! Owl!"..........My Mom has a thing about owls lately! You'll see what I mean in an upcoming post. She buys Miss E pajamas with owls, shirts with owls etc. For Christmas she bought her this adorable Owl hat! It really is the cutest! Miss E loves it! I let her keep the hat but explained to her that Nana bought her the hat, not Santa. And we really should wait til Christmas day when Santa brings her a gift. She wasn't buying what I was selling so for a couple more hours I had to sweet talk her and coax her back to sleep.

So, my question......Do you wait til Christmas Eve to display presents or do you set yourself up for punishment by putting them out as soon as they are wrapped? I think for this household, we'll hide the presents from now on and I'll just chalk this one up to another Lesson Learned!