Christmas Prep in the Arctic

Those of you with small children: Where do you store Christmas presents before they're put under the tree? I seem to recall them being in closets when I was a child. I suspect that with the prevalence of giant walk-in closets now, it has gotten even easier to hide them. And of course, with most of those giant closets being in master bedrooms, it's so simple to close the bedroom door and pull the presents out to wrap in the bedroom. Maybe with some Christmas carols playing.

How idyllic. 

But that's not how it happens at my house.

You know where I store presents? In our unheated and barely enclosed shop, that's where. I don't have anywhere inside my house where they wouldn't be ferreted out by my inquisitive children. So I keep them in the big boxes they're shipped in and stack them in a corner of the shop.

This year's tree awaiting wrapped gifts.

There's plenty of room in the shop, and the kids never look in there, but it makes it somewhat challenging to get them into the house undetected for wrapping. But I really wanted to do some of the wrapping last night, so I wouldn't be faced with a pile of things all to be done before I could sleep tonight. 

However, I put all the presents under the tree after the kids go to bed on Christmas Eve. I didn't want to bring them inside, only to have to bring them back out again, and then back in again tonight. So I thought it would be best to just bring them into A.'s office to wrap them, because that has an outside door that opens into the shop.

There were several downsides to this plan. One is that there is very little room in the office, especially with the two big dog crates in there at the moment. 

Another is that A.'s office also has a door leading into Calvin and Jack's room, and they weren't all the way asleep yet. So I had to be very, very quiet. Luckily, my going in and out was somewhat explained by letting the dogs in and out before settling them in their crates*.

But the biggest downside was the weather. It was nine degrees outside, and thus nine degrees in the shop. Maybe 40 degrees in the office. And I was going back and forth between them. So cold. So, so cold. 

Luckily, most of my "wrapping" involves sticking things in re-usable gift bags and re-labeling them. I decided anything that required finger dexterity, like wrapping paper and tape, could wait until tonight when I could bring everything into my bedroom.

I was only out there for maybe 25 minutes, but that was plenty long enough. My hands were stiff and numb, and my feet were blocks of ice, but I got most of the presents ready to go. 

Merry Christmas Eve to everyone, and I hope your final preparations happen in climate control. 

* What actually happened there is that I let the dogs out to go to the bathroom before they were in for the night, and they went out the door, stopped, and then huddled in some camping equipment next to the office door before I let them back in. They didn't even get three feet from the office door. That's how unpleasant it was.