Parents reveal the best places to hide Christmas presents from your curious kids – and your NEIGHBOURS can help
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YOU'VE managed to finish your Christmas shopping, and for a brief moment you celebrate your incredible victory.
But then your heart sinks as you realise your next tricky challenge - hiding the present stash from your curious children, who might 'accidentally' stumble upon their gifts.
Well don't worry - bed specialist have spoken to parents who've shared their best spots to hide your gifts, and here they reveal to Fabulous their top tips...
A shoe-in
No built-in storage in your property? No problem.
Mum Alice Thompson says: “Our two-bed flat had limited storage and zero loft space.
"Therefore, we had to get extremely creative and pretty much anywhere was fair game when it came to present hiding.
"Stocking filler gifts were stashed in wellies and shoe boxes.
"We even went to the extreme of removing the back of our wardrobe and stashing wrapped gifts behind it.
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“Being slightly sleep deprived from retrieving these gifts on Christmas Eve, we ended up forgetting about some of the hiding places until our little girl was already up and opening presents.
"It meant we had to perform a bit of 'distraction magic' to get them under the tree without her noticing!”
A little white lie
Fighting a losing battle, and you just know your children will find the presents no matter how well you hide them?
Mum Jane Roberts says: "We could only find space to hide Christmas presents in the wardrobe of our second bedroom so we had no choice but to tell our daughter where they were as she would no doubt find them herself.
"But to keep her from taking a sneaky peek we did tell her a little white lie…
"To try and make sure she wouldn't completely ruin the surprise on Christmas Day, we told her that the wardrobe was booby trapped.
"We honestly didn't think this tactic would work but she never chanced taking a look and now at 23 she says she genuinely bought it, she even reminded me that we also said the wardrobe had cameras inside so we would know if anyone went snuck in - sometimes you have to be inventive!"
Good neighbours
Mum-of-two Sarah Pearson went to a new level of sneaky to make sure her kids didn't find their Christmas presents.
She says: "When they were old enough, both of my children loved rummaging through cupboards and boxes to find something new to play with, as most kids do, so we knew we would have to be smart when it came to hiding Christmas presents.
"We didn't have space under our beds or a cupboard out of reach so we had to think of something different.
"Luckily our next door neighbours are more like family to us and with their children having grown up and moved out, they were more than happy to let us store the presents in the loft and wrap the presents in their house.
"This meant that we didn't have to constantly be on watch to make sure they didn't spot anything and avoided waking them up to access our own loft.
"On Christmas Eve we would collect the presents from our neighbours' house, arrange them in the living room and head back to bed - the kids never found out and couldn't believe what we'd been doing when we finally told them!"
Hidden in plain sight
Dad-of-two Tom Hemingway revealed how sticking to ordinary hiding spots can work.
He says: "I think our kids are more aware of the lesser known places to hide Christmas presents thanks to films and TV shows so we tend to stick to the more common spots to hide gifts.
"The main place we use to stow presents is our storage bed, the kids know that we just store spare bedding and towels there and it's difficult for them to access anyway so they don't bother.
"With space for larger items that would be difficult to hide elsewhere, it's a great option for us."
Suitcase solution
The pandemic may have scuppered your travelling plans, but your suitcases can still come in handy.
Mum Katie Peters says: “We pretty much all have suitcases in our loft or cupboards taking up space so we decided to put them to good use to hide our four year old’s presents as we knew he wouldn’t ever think about the cases.
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"We then told our friends about the hack and they took it to another level, putting a lock on the case for extra security. Genius.”
However, make sure you check the terms and conditions on your home insurance before deciding where to store your present stash away from prying eyes.
