WW: Reindeer in the House!

(This is a repeat post from last year; it still fits because I'm doing the same thing now that I was at this time last year, and the year before, and the year before that, etc.)

There are reindeer in my house.
Sort of.

Years ago, my children – like most children, I imagine – would look for hidden presents before Christmas. It was never very easy to hide gifts.

I believe that when a child found a gift with his or her name on it, that child would shake the gift or maybe even peek under the wrapping paper in hopes of finding out what might be in the box. The "evidence" led me to believe there had been what one might call "tampering."

So, I simply quit hiding the gifts. Instead, I put the names of various reindeer on packages. (As daughter Mandy pointed out, this was not an original idea; a long-ago neighbor did the same.) Each year, it became a game to figure out which reindeer was which person. Usually, each child was two reindeer.

This has become one of our family traditions. It just wouldn’t seem right to have gifts with the real names instead of reindeer names.

Now, the children are grown – ranging from 27 to 34 – and the family has grown to include a son-in-law and a grandchild.

The three children are living in three different states, but their gifts are ready with reindeer names, awaiting their arrival home for Christmas.

Since there are more people, I’ve added Frosty and a few other names, although I haven’t yet had to use Scrooge or the Grinch, thank goodness.

Of course, there’s been another change: I’ve gotten older as well, so the biggest problem now has to do with remembering which person is which reindeer and keeping up with where I’ve hidden THAT list!

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Other Wordless Wednesday participants are HERE.
Other Wordful Wednesday participants are HERE.

PH: Surprise!!!!

Surprise is the theme for this week's Photo Hunt. Life is full of 'em!!!!

Several years ago, the folks at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, were surprised to have the tallest soldier and the shortest soldier to ever go through MOS training there at the same time. The short one is Tiffany, one of my daughters.



I was surprised when part of my eBay purchase arrived like this!

I was surprised when I forgot that I was boiling eggs on the stove!

Grandson Harrison is surprised about something!

Sometimes people are surprised to learn how one of my brothers, Shawn, teaches children to water-ski. He pulls them on the ground first, behind him running!




This is Shawn's daughter, Kendall. Can't tell if she is laughing at the joy of skiing or at how tired her dad is getting while doing the running & pulling!

My dad took the easy way out years ago, but folks were just as surprised to learn that he pulled us on skis behind a car!!

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Photo Hunt participants are throughout blogland. Click here to see other surprises this week!