The festive season is now fully upon us, and as Christmas day draws closer and closer it can be hard to contain our excitement, and harder still to contain our children’s. There is something truly magical about the bright eyes and hopeful heart of our little ones as they prepare to see what Santa has for them. The element of surprise as they hurriedly tear the wrapping paper away from their gifts is where we get our kicks, watching their expression change as they reveal the presents. The anticipation for them however, can get a little too much.

It’s a well known fact that children rummage and search for their presents well before the big day has arrived. With Christmas songs starting in October, then the tree coming up 12 days before, it can just get too much for them. The build up goes on too long, as they just want to know what they’ve got for all their hard work during the year. Safestore, the UK specialist in flexible storage space, have provided us with their top tips on how and where to hide the presents and preserve the excitement.

1. Use your family, friends, neighbors, associates and even your workplace. If you can store the presents outside of the house this will seriously limit any potential chance of the kids finding them

2. Hide them in plain sight. This one requires some thought – which areas of the house do children actively avoid? Do you have a cupboard for cleaning products? We’ve put presents into bags and then put them into the washing basket, wrapped them up in spare duvets or transfer smaller items into different boxes the kids aren’t interested in, like washing powder or old storage boxes. This can be risky if they decide they need some last minute Santa brownie points and want to clean the house for you, but how likely is that?

3. Avoid the loft and the top of wardrobes. The kids are on to you, and yes they might be small, but they can be super resourceful when it comes to present hunting. The obvious places are, well, obvious after all

4. If you are buying big or expensive presents, like bikes, TVs, bunk beds or anything that’s going to be difficult to hide or conceal, and you don’t have a secure shed, you could look at self storage options. Storage can be a lot cheaper than you think, and if you use a company like Safestore who are flexible on storage room sizes and length of stay which means you only pay for what you use. It’s a sad truth that thefts and burglaries rise around Christmas time so a storage room could be more safe and secure

5. If you’re online shopping, it might be best to book a day off and have all your deliveries come at once and as close to Christmas day as possible. This way you can simply wrap them and put them underneath the tree. To hide what the gifts are, wrap them in old clothing or put clothes into box, it’s great fun to keep the kids guessing. Another idea is to put other people’s names on the tags, this way they won’t be interested in feeling them or ‘accidentally’ tearing a little bit of the paper away.

6. If you have any empty suitcases or shoe boxes within your wardrobe or garage, these can make great hiding places, and shouldn’t raise suspicion as long as you leave them within their usual place

7. Or if you have a set of draws within the bedroom, take the bottom one out and look underneath, there should be a decent sized bit of space for you to hide a few bits

8. And if you have a fake tree, you can use the box it’s stored in for some additional space

If you have any great hiding places we haven’t mentioned, pop a comment below and let us know!

I so love the Christmas tree box idea, its a big box and kids wouldn’t even think to look there because they know that tree came out of it. This year my hubby and I have the kids gifts hidden in storage/ plastic bins in the garage, and then we have cubbys in our van where you can store the chairs away if you want to. The spaces are pretty big, and we have gifts stored down there as well.

… now- I need to dig out all the hidden gift’s and get them wrapped.

jen