Santa Shuffle

There are a lot of things that happen in life, and a lot of them make me think about how that particular event was for my parents- like, when I learned to drive. We lived in a super small town of 15,000 and so teaching me to drive wasn't nearly as bad (stressful? scary?) as I can imagine it will be for me when I teach daughter and then son to drive in a town that is topping a million plus people now. Oh, geeze.
Another one that comes to mind is Christmas and the whole Santa deal. And now also with daughter, the tooth fairy. She lost her second tooth today and so tonight we not only had to tiptoe around as Santa, but also the Tooth Fairy. I tried desperately to get her to pull the tooth last night, with this big convincing story about how if they both came at once, they may bump into each other and knock each other out, and no one would get their presents or money. But daughter just giggled and said that that would get her in the newspaper, and maybe even jail for ruining Christmas. I hope jail isn't still cool in about 10 more years. Yikes!
So anyhow, wrapping presents is never a problem.I just find a bedroom and lock myself in it. Sometimes if I am behind I do it on Christmas Eve, but normally (and especially now with 2 kids), that leaves me completely exhausted. So I wrapped my presents a few weeks ago.
Given the fact that we are serial movers (move #6 in 6 years), we've spent each Christmas in a different house, so with each year comes finding a new Santa routine. This year now that we are in FL, people obviously don't have basements with the whole hurricane thing, and thus we were forced to hide the presents in a very prominent non-locking closet. It was enough torture to make sure the kids didn't open that closet for the last oh, two months or so.
So tonight husband digs out all of the presents, and starts putting them under the tree. I wrap a few that weren't wrapped, and all is well. It then leads me to start thinking about how my parents did it. I wonder if they were as careful as I am, tip toeing through the house, not leaving a shred of wrapping paper behind and disposing of all wrapping paper after wards, even the unused rolls as to not leave any incriminating evidence.Checking the stairs every 10 seconds to make sure no one is up and coming down them. Did they have other ways of going about it, better secrets? Common sense would say to ask them these things, but it's more fun to imagine. Obviously they did something right because I was way too old to still believe in Santa and my parents finally broke the news to me. I'm actually not really sure why they spoiled the fun when it wasn't causing any harm, as I fully intend to let my kids believe for as long as they want. Who knows how long that is in this day and age.
Daughter is a very heavy sleeper (thank goodness), and son is not. So having him in his crib for now is helpful, and I'm contemplating keeping him in it until he no longer believes in Santa, so that I don't ever risk him sneaking down to find me "being Santa". Of course, if he is as old as I was then he may be a bit too big for his crib.
Little snippets of time like that are fun for me, when I think of how it was for my parents and how different things are now.
We're headed to Orlando tomorrow to start what is sure to be a movie-worthy trip. If I weren't so tired already, I just might would document it and pitch it to Lifetime hahaha. I'll be gone for about a week and a couple of days, at which point I am sure to update with some interesting stories.
Merry Christmas and happy all other holidays to everyone who celebrates anything special to them (did that possibly cover everyone?). May you all be blessed and have a wonderful rest of the year and safe New year!