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Around the holidays, many homes turn into giant hide-and-seek playgrounds as kids search high and low to find their hidden Christmas presents!
It is time to outsmart your kids with these clever Christmas gift-hiding ideas! 18 Creative ways to hide all those Christmas presents, large and small, from your searching children!
When it comes to finding presents, your kids are truly gifted (pun intended). I’m sharing all the hiding spots that really work!
How to Hide Christmas Presents is a True Gift
The basement or the attic might seem like smart hiding spots, but it those areas are definitely on the search list of places to look for the gifts!
If you can, the best place to keep the gifts away from curious kids is outside the house. The trunk of the car is a favorite of many, but there are more places where you can hide all the Christmas presents.
Some people like to stash away presents in trash bags. Yes, kids don’t often look in the trash, but it could be a disaster if those bags are mistakenly set at the curb for trash pickup!
If you hide presents all through the house and not in one central spot, make sure you remember where everything is. Keep a password-protected note on your phone as a reminder of where you hid all the gifts.
Hiding Presents in the Bedroom Closets – Why it is not the Best Hiding Spot
Neighbor, a self-storage company, surveyed 1,000 people to find out how they keep holiday presents a surprise. Here are a few of the findings from that survey:
- Bedroom closets are the most popular place to hide gifts, but also the first place people look for hidden gifts, and the most common place where gifts get found.
- 50% of people have been successful in their gift-hiding. But that means 50% of people have had a hidden present get found.
- Most hidden gifts get discovered within a week.
- Most people (60%) say hiding gifts is fun and doesn’t add to their holiday stress.
Continue below for all the clever ways to hide your presents!
Ways to Hide Christmas Gifts so they Won’t Get Found
Make sure a surprise stays a surprise with these ideas where and how to hide the Christmas gifts this year.
These tips can seriously help you, but if your kids are good with their chores, cleaning up their rooms, and doing laundry, just skip some of those hiding places in this list.
- Go gift shopping when your children are not around to see you come home with arms full of packages. If you order gifts online try to set the delivery time to when the kids are not home.
- Gift wrap as you go. Kids are less likely to open an already wrapped present.
- Decorate gifts with ribbons tied around all sides. If your kids do find the stash of presents, untying and retying the bows is hard without leaving evidence of tampering and they know it.
- Mark wrapped presents with colored gift tags. A different color for each family member. Wait until Christmas Eve to put names on the boxes. Don’t forget which color is for whom!
- Clean up when you are finished wrapping. A tape dispenser, scraps of ribbon, or a pair of scissors left out, or even more obvious, a roll of wrapping paper, all evidence that signals it is time to start searching for gifts!
- Some stores still offer layaway around the holidays. Make use of it and keep gifts on (no-fee) layaway to retrieve them shortly before Christmas.
- Do a gift hiding swap with a friend. Store your friends wrapped gifts while she holds on to yours.
- Depending on your workplace you might be able to find a place to store presents at work, away from gift searching happening at home.
- Hide gifts in plain sight. Keep the wrapped gifts under the tree. Tampering with presents that are out in the open is risky business.
- Empty out long-standing storage bins and fill them with gifts.
- Use places kids avoid, like the crawl space or the area under the kitchen sink.
- The trunk of the car is a classic hiding place for a good reason. If the kids are still young and not driving the car yet, they won’t get into the trunk.
- Keep gifts hidden inside stored away suitcases. If the luggage can be locked that’s an extra layer of protection.
- This might feel risky, but hide the gift in the kids’ room. Somewhere like the top shelf of their closet. Kids will look everywhere else, never suspecting all the goodies are right there under their noses!
- Hide small presents in the kitchen. Clean out an empty coffee can or something else that is large enough to hold your gift. Put it inside the can and place it back on the pantry shelf.
- Very small items can be hidden inside old socks. Put them all the way in the back of the sock drawer.
- Garages often are a good and easy option. Especially if it is a bit messy and full of boxes and other things the gifts can hide behind, under and in between!
- If you have teenagers, try the laundry room. Or the pile of their clothes on the floor. 😉
Need some gift wrapping inspiration? Here are some fun and easy gift wrap ideas to DIY: