2009 Christmas Game

Just released.....it's the newest version of our family's annual Christmas game. Those who know me, know that each Christmas I create a game with our gifts. I started this many years ago when I realized that the kids were peaking in their gifts and/or getting too good at guessing what they got.

What? Peaking?

Of course, we all did it. I remember when I was 12 or 13 years old, I carefully unwrapped all my gifts one year to see what was inside. Then I wrapped them back putting tape exactly over the old tape....and wal-lah, good as new! Although my parents never knew, Christmas just wasn't as much fun that year.

Anyway....in previous years I have numbered gifts (assigning 1-10 to one child 11-20 to another and so on), I have assigned a different group of animals to each person (birds, water animals, zoo animals and so on) and last year was states and capitals. Half the gifts were addressed to a state and half were addressed to a state capital. They each got an answer sheet and had to keep track of all the gifts and come up with the correct answers. The one with the most right and spelled correctly won a bonus $100. There is always a bonus for who ever can correctly guess the theme. Since Carter and Samuel are too young to understand, Tommy always plays for them and if he wins, the boys split the bonus. So far....Amanda has won every year.

Since I am confident that my children don't read my blog, I am sharing with you what this years game entails. For those of you who are my friend on Facebook you may have noticed that I posted a status update yesterday that said, "26 Christmas presents.....finally have 9 bought and only 17 more to go and only 45 more days to do it!" What a big hint and neither Josh or Amanda picked up on it. How would I know that I will have 26 presents before they are even bought? Well, the gifts are named for a word that represents each letter of the alphabet. For example, Samuel has A-E, Carter has F-J and so on. As we open our gifts in random order they will have to recognize the pattern that develops...first one name the theme wins $50. And the bonus to the bonus is that each word is the first word in our dictionary for each letter. That extra bonus is worth another $50.

I love doing this because it adds an extra amount of fun on Christmas morning, and will be a tradition that I hope they will pass down to my grandchildren someday. It also keeps the kids from knowing what gifts are theirs and also from peaking. Of course they love that extra bonus money too. I may need to solicit ideas in the future because I am sure I will run out of them eventually.