Putting the X back in X-mas.
Dec 26th, 2007 by jeremy
Rather than another year of my children sitting like lumps opening each present that we pass them, we decided to make things interesting this Christmas. How can you make a holiday full of presents, Santa Claus and cookies more intersting you ask? Zombies, monkeys and pirates always work in my opinion. Not just for Christmas, can you think of any occasion a zombie, monkey, pirate, or better yet, a zombified pirate monkey, wouldn’t make more interesting?
Sidney is seven, an age in which zombies are probably more terrifying than interesting. I didn’t want a plan that would cost me thousands of dollars in therapy each Christmas. And while monkeys can be fun, I wasn’t smart enough to figure out a way to incorporate them into gift-giving.
So I settled on pirates. Sid was getting a few small presents, then a big dollhouse that I’ve been working on for a month. We would give her the small presents, then somehow introduce pirates into the mix for her final big present. First we hid it in the garage. When I asked for volunteers to be a pirate, Owen Butler a friend from Planetcrap, said he would help. He’s Australian, and his accent combined with my cheesy pirate script turned out great (thanks again Owen!). We put it on an ipod, and explained to Sidney what had happened. Pirates needed Christmas presents too, and they had decided to take one of her presents for themselves. Fortunately these pirates were good enough to leave her an audio message. Listen to it here.
The message explained she could have her gift back, but she’d have to work for it.
The pirates left clues scattered inside and outside our home, each one with a photo of the approximate location the next clue could be found.
Certain clues also had tiny pieces of furniture, giving her hints of what the final present would be.
She ran from room to room collecting clues, and kept getting more excited.
Finally she found the last clue down in the basement, and while she was looking for it we dragged the dollhouse out of the garage and set it next to the Christmas tree.
She loved it, and and is already telling us a treasure hunt should be a part of every Christmas. A little cheesy, but I had fun putting it together, and it added some variety to our Christmas.
What a fun idea! It looks like Sidney loved the hunt and the treasure.
Aaaarrrrrrrren’t pirates a great thing! Sounds like a blast.
That’s completely awesome. I can’t wait to try something like this when my kids are older. In the meantime, would you be my dad, Jeremy?
I thought it was a great idea. I think Mom and Dad should do that for us next Christmas.
How fun. I’m sure it made the Christmas morning fun last a little bit longer.
Haha! That’s awesome, JJ. Sounds like you’ve started a new tradition whether you like it or not!
You are such a good father. Did your mom tell you about the dollhouse dad built for us?