The Hunt

Santa does things a little differently at our house.  He makes the kids work for their Merry Christmas.  He does do the stockings, too, which are easy and all right out there in the open and everything.  But the good stuff... he hides that.  And leaves little clues.

He always leaves a nice letter indicating the whereabouts of the first clue and apologizes ahead of time for clues that are too hard to figure out and thanks us for the snacks we left out for him and his reindeer (we always help feed the reindeer).  That Santa, he's a-okay in my book ;-)  even if I did wait up for him until after 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve... just in case he needed some help.

The troops were up at Oh-six-hundred.  For real.  That is why it looks kind of dark in the pictures... because even at 7 a.m. it is still not fully daylight.

Here is live footage of the stocking action (as always, I don't know when to turn the camera off so it's pretty long.  The excited scream in the beginning is priceless, though):

and if I sound really tired and my husband looks exhausted, well, it's because we ARE.

Some of the favorite stocking stuffers:

 Q-man got a big dreidel... the Fat Man has a sense of humor.

 Big G got an Unidentified Flying Mater from Mater's Tall Tales... and his Liters
(get it? take me to your liter)

Baby X got some rad Peace shades... the girl can wear anything well.

Then we moved on the the under-the-tree stuff...

Clearly, this gift was a major hit!

After that The Hunt went quick.  

Q-man was running from the living room to the upstairs bathroom and down into the garage and then into the family room to find his new helmet and skateboard (not exactly sure what the Fat Man was thinking when he chose to give a real skateboard to a 5-year old.  I'm sure I'll be asking myself him that at some point during that first ER visit).

Baby X was in seventh heaven!  She was whipping around from the dining room to my bedroom to the garage while finding her little figure skater bonanza of tights, a dress, and a very nice skate bag.  She said she couldn't believe Santa gave her exactly what she wanted... almost.  I did not and will not ask for clarification... Santa busted his behind to get her what she got.

Big G was the only one who got a super cryptic clue... "five times with music makes one hundred times the fun".  The present was five $20 bills hidden in musical things throughout the house.  He did figure it out eventually with a little bit of 'direction' when it came to locating that last bill in that last musical thing (it was crammed into a crack in a musical snail pull-toy in the very bottom of Miss C's over-flowingly full toy bucket).

Even the grown-ups got great gifts.  My husband got underpants and Whoppers (I thought they kind of went together).  He was really needing those undies.  (The ones currently in use I think I had gotten for him for Christmas about 5 years ago).

As for me, I got an iPod nano.  Which I really needed.  Now my poor hand won't cramp up and my stride won't be so terrifically lop-sided from carrying that huge cellphone when I run ;-)  I am sure my runs will be so much improved now.  And that's what's important :P

I think utilitarian gifts are the best.  Don't you?