Hidden Christmas Fun

I have so many favorite Christmas traditions. Some are passed down from my childhood, some are deeply spiritual, some are silly. Most are just plain fun. The tradition I want to share with you today is definitely just plain fun.

This is the tradition my father started by hiding a dollar bill of large value in each of our stockings.

Years ago my parents stuck a bill in the finger of a pair of gloves in our stockings and surprised us. And then it began. Except it's never been that easy to find since.

Now my sister and I and our husbands just plan on at least 30 minutes of looking for the hidden bills. When we are done, there is a huge pile of ripped up packaging and dismantled stocking stuffers. Seriously, you have no idea how difficult he makes it. If you know him and know how brilliant he is, I am sure you are not surprised. If you don't know him, here is a glimpse into his creativity.

This is a sampling of some of the places we have found our bills in past years:

• compressed into the size of a dime and placed under the seal of the cap on a bottle of car wax


• under a label on a bottle of lotion


• inside a chocolate...yes, he drilled out a hole and carefully rewrapped it and put it with several others


• rolled thin and disguised in black electrical tape and put inside a sealed bag of black cable ties


• slipped inside the corrugated cardboard of the box of an item


• inside many a factory sealed package. How did he do that?


• in a false bottom he created for a can of WD40 (or something)

And this year David's was inside a utility knife (he had to use a screwdriver to get to it) and mine is pictured below. It was slid deep into an invisible slot cut on the side of my new George Foreman grill sponge. I was exhausted when I finally found it.

While the money is obviously exciting to get, the fun of finding it is worth way more than that bill. He could use a one dollar bill and we'd have just as much fun.

...but let's not tell him that, ok?