A little OCD when it comes to Santa…

Cathy thinks I’m nutty when it comes to Santa.

I am.

I’ll admit it.

I have my ways of doing things and I dare anyone to try to make me change.

For one, nothing comes from me.  Meaning, under the tree Christmas morning, you will find not one gift from Mom.  Everything is from friends or family who have mailed packages or Santa.

Period.

(Except this year.  Samara found the desk chair that she’s getting and she’s SO excited about it.  I had to tell her that I bought it for her awhile ago and decided I would wrap it up for Christmas.)

Additionally, yes, everyone’s gifts is wrapped in one kind of paper.  For example, as we all know, Samara’s is red with silver snowflakes on it.  (Which I found, by the way.  It was behind the tree with the scissors and tape — I hadn’t yet realized that was missing those.)  Matthew’s is foil as well, but his is white with red and green polka dots on it.  The boy’s youngest is Tinkerbell, the boy’s oldest is a cartoony Santa and snow capped Christmas trees, mine is Candy cane striped, and the boy’s?

Oh, did I pull a major snafu with the boy’s gifts.  I misjudged how much I would need.  So I almost finished wrapping his gifts with the paper that has the stockings all over it and ran out.  I only got one roll of that.  So it caused a near meltdown.  Not necessarily because I didn’t have more stocking paper, but because I had nothing that coordinated with it.

NOTHING.

So, after thinking long and hard about whether or not I should unwrap and rewrap his presents in a paper that I had two rolls of, I decided that I should probably just let it go.  I selected paper that had Santa’s all over it and completed the wrapping.

But I have to tell you, it’s bugging the snot out of me every single time that I walk past the box with all of his gifts in it.

Seriously.

I mean, I feel like I have to stop and rewrap everything.  But I’m bound and determined to get over this.  I only have 7 more wake ups to make it.

I think I can.

Now, another thing is, NO presents go under the tree until Santa arrives except the presents that were mailed to us.  That’s it.  It’s not a big deal really except my kids keep asking why I don’t put the presents for the boy and his kids under the tree.

No.  I will not.  Period.

They will stay in their respective boxes, wrapped, until Christmas Eve when Santa delivers the presents.

I’m kinda OCD about all of this.

But it’s the way that I was raised.  Each of us had our own paper.  And when Santa delivered presents he stackes them neatly in piles

Here’s a picture from last year.

Last year the paper was coordinating.  I’m working on that whole issue this year.  Seriously.  The paper is all over the place.

Now, when the kids come out Christmas morning, unless I pick obvious boy/girl paper (like one year Matthew had scooby doo and Samara had Princesses) they don’t know who’s pile is who’s.

They don’t know until they look in their stocking.

Which was okay, but it got even more fun when they got matching stockings, so now they REALLY don’t know until they read their letter from Santa.

And yes, EVERYTHING in the stocking is wrapped, too.

Again, there’s a reason.

It’s the way that it was done with us when we were kids.

For one, the same paper alleviates writing names on the packages or stupid gift tags.  I don’t like them.  I can remember who has what paper.

It makes Christmas morning a little more fun and prevents those who might get up early to snoop to not know which stuff is theirs.

Additionally, wrapping the stocking stuffers makes Christmas last a little longer.  My mom will tell you that there were years that there wasn’t much, so anything she could wrap, she did, so that it would last just a little bit longer.  It’s the same reason we take turns opening as well.  When the anticipation is built up, who wants it to be over in the blink of an eye?

Not me.

I’ll do what ever I can to prolong Christmas.

And so I do.

Am I a little OCD about it?

Yup.

But these are memories that I’m carrying over from MY childhood and passing them on to my kids.

And when they have their own house they can do what they wish with their Santa presents.  But they probably shouldn’t tell me if they don’t do it my way.

I can picture myself pulling the “mom” card on them… “But I took all that time to wrap those presents and all those memories.”

It will be interesting to see how my brother handles next Christmas with a child to see if he’s carried over any of our traditions.

But for now, I’m OCD about Christmas and Santa.

And yes, I really did tell my daughter that Santa asked us to provide paper since times were tough.  That was two years ago.  She bought it… hook, line and sinker.

You probably don’t even want to know what I’ve told them about why the Tooth Fairy didn’t come one several nights.

Until next time…