99 presents for kids 'neath the tree

99 presents for kids
Take one down and pass it around
99 presents for kids 'neath the tree

Well, actually there are 92, but who's counting?

I am. This is another one of those things that is hard for people to imagine, how do you do Christmas with 13 kids. It has not always been this way, and will probably continue to evolve, but for the last couple years, here is how we do it.

We have a budget. We spend a little more on the bigs and a little less on the smalls and basically nothing on the baby.

And we make a list and put it in a spreadsheet, everything we buy, price, shipping info, who it's for, etc. After making sure everybody will open pretty much the same number of things and with pretty much the same amount of happiness, we then sort them by gift, alphabetically.

Then we tweak it. We send everyone's "main present" to the end and make sure the small people don't go too long without something to unwrap.

Finally, we number them.

Each child had another child to help choose a gift for, and they got to wrap their person's presents, to what ever degree they were capable of doing so. (I'm pretty sure Fifth Daughter already told Third Daughter what she got her.) Once wrapped, each gift gets only a number. No names.

That keeps everyone guessing the whole time. And it's fun.

So that's how we do it. It's a little ocd, I admit, but it's a great game.

That's how we do the present thing. I think we will do stockings, then breakfast, then Christmas story and gifts after breakfast. Breakfast is home made egg mcmuffins this year - good enough to eat even with a sock full of candy in front of you.