Ruining Christmas by Snooping.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I used to be a notorius snooper. I think my parents caught onto it eventually, and started storing all of their gifts at my grandparents’ house…which was kind of null considering that they always stuck them in the closet of the guest room where I usually slept, making things really easy. Of course, after one year when my parents decided that santa was going to bring me a gift which I asked for from them specifically, and I said “uh oh. Looks like Santa got me the same thing that you did” and when they asked how I knew that they actually got me that, I clammed up. That, plus the next year when a gift from Santa had a kay-bee price tag, helped me figure out on my own that I was the target of the biggest conspiracy in the world.

Parents, why do you go through this Santa routine in the first place? Most parents give their kids gifts from themselves anyway, why do they have to get one extra gift from a fictional character? Doesn’t it just set them up to have their hearts broken in a couple of years?

of course, after they caught on to the grandparents house thing, they started storing them at the neighbors house. I caught my mom bringing gifts over there once, and I suggested to her “why don’t you just WRAP the gifts after you buy them, instead of waiting until the last minute?” … and now she does…and still stores them at a neighbor’s house until december 23. That is, until 3 years ago when I decided to play the same game by hiding all of my wrapped gifts away instead of putting them under the tree. They got so nervous that I didn’t do any Christmas shopping that we decided to reach a truce that gifts can just go
under the tree right away, and to leave them alone. In that sense, my mother is just as bad as me, cuz she checks EVERY SINGLE tag to see who’s getting what.

42

At first glance, I thought this thread title read “Ruining Christmas By Shopping” … and I was in full agreement!

I don’t think anyone in our family ever snooped, but now that we’re older, my mom’s developed this annoying habit of telling us what everyone’s Christmas present is going to be. Of course, she tells us not to tell the intended recipient, but then she’s just as bad. She’ll ask me if I know that my sister is getting me a certain present… thanks for ruining the sur[rise, Mom! :rolleyes:

Then again, last year she told me not to buy the Guinness Book of World Records… accordingly, I did not. Guess what I got on Christmas Day… a novelty toy in the form of a moose with jellybeans inside it. :frowning: She said that my sister thought this would be much better for me. Is it any wonder I don’t trust either her or my sister?

So this year, she tried the same thing. Too late, I told her. I’d already gotten the book (on sale, thank you very much) for myself. The next weekend, she asked me if I have the book Century; no, I don’t have that. Then she told me that she already bought it for me. So now I know what I’m getting for Christmas… and it does ruin the surprise. Then again, I don’t trust her at all, since there’s still a week left before the day, and she could still conceivably change her mind. Iespecially with my sister now back in town… woohoo.)

F_X

43

My brother often snooped and told me what my presents were. I would get hurt and angry. Mom never punished him for it or the many other things he used to do to abuse me. Just part of him being an abusive asshole. I don’t speak to him. I am glad that it breaks my mother’s heart that I refuse to talk to him or attend family events that he might show up at, except funerals.

44

I never snooped. The anticipation and surprise make the gifts more fun.

45

I don’t snoop. I do lots of things that could be considered snooping, but I don’t want to actually be a successful snoop.

Mr Goo and I have a game that starts in the first week of December for Xmas, and two weeks before our birthdays. We try and guess. We shake wrapped (and disguised) pressies. We ask for ‘hints’, like what colour is it, does it have a smell, is it artificial, etc… The game is in wrapping the gift so the other person will have no clue what it is, and answering all questions with a response that isn’t lying, but also doesn’t give the game away.

The last thing either of us want is to know what the actual gift is, we just play the game because we find it fun.

If anybody is interested, my Xmas gift comes from the local shopping centre, is ‘natural’ depending on what your definition of natural is, contains the colour ‘cream’ and will make noise. This pretty much means it could be anything :wink: Hey, I know it’s childish, but we love it !

46

You know, I really envy you guys. I never had to snoop, my parents were so lame.

Every year, around the first of November, my dad would try oh, so casually to ask what I wanted for Christmas. (Usually they would try for two major presents, and an assorted number of smaller whatever gifts.) So I would tell him, he would confirm it twice then rush off suddenly…

A few weeks later, with the tree up and festooned with a skirt of presents, my mother would oh, so playfully ask me what I thought I was getting for Christmas. So I would tell her, and she would be perplexed and annoyed that I knew and deny it feebly then rush off suddenly…

The week leading up to Christmas, nobody would mention anything to my face, but my mom would make sure I heard her on the phone with my aunt, when she would oh, so indignantly rant and rail that she didn’t know how I always knew what I was getting for Christmas, but, by God, next year all I was getting was an empty box! and then she would “notice” I was in the room and hang up suddenly…

After Christmas, and according to what became the established tradition of our house, they would both announce to me oh, so proudly that I had been completely right about it all and shake their heads in wonder…

Does that make me evil?

47

While LilMiss was hanging with her dad last night, I wrapped a slug of pressies and put them under the tree.
When she got home, it was as if she won the lottery.
Immediately she started digging through them-

and realized I coded them all. They all have tags on them, but rather than names, they have *#!-+ and such.

PISSED HER OFF.

Oh, I SO love this time of year :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

As far a pressie lists, every Thanksgiving we let the turkey drug kick in and relax in the living room writing down our wish lists.
My parents quit trying to “surprise” me when I was about 13. Mom would give me the Dayton’s charge, give me a limit, and I would buy my own pressies (which she would then wrap). I liked it inasmuch as it negated receiving crappy stuff, but it did take the fun out of it.
They’re buying me an office chair, a new coat, and cookie sheets. Whee.

48

My husband and his brothers drove their mother crazy with snooping, shaking, and feeling gifts. So she decided one year to get back at them - she numbered all the gifts and hid the master list.

Unfortunately, she lost the master list, so Christmas morning was a guessing game all around as she tried to remember which box was for whom. Her sons have never let her forget about it.

49

I remember at age 12 lecturing my parents when my mom sent me down to the garage to get a new jar of pickels (my parents make their own) and I found one of my christmas gifts.

Silly parents, don’t hide gifts then send me to where you hid them.

My mom is a PAIN in the ass about gifts.

You have to chain her presents down. I now ship the gifts if buy for her to my dad’s office. I figure they are safe there.

50

Let’s be clear; it’s perfectly valid to shake, peer, feel, and squeeze a gift once it’s out and under the tree. When a present is under the tree, it’s fair game as long as the wrapping stays on and intact.

51

I did go grocery shopping last night and knew my present was in there, so I had the bagger unload my groceries for me so I didn’t have to look (they take them out to your car for you), then when I got home, made my husband unload them so I wouldn’t see! I think he finally felt a little bad that I had to go to such lengths to keep it a secret, and removed it. I think.

52

fairy chat mom, that is the funniest thing i ever read.

did the presents get straighten out or did they just unwrap and trade about?

53

I didn’t snoop very much as a kid. Then again, my father didn’t believe in surprises. “If you’re going to give something to someone, why wait for a specific day?” Usually they just ask me what specific things I’d like, and I ask them the same.

I’m ok with waiting until Christmas, but my wife just cannot deal with keeping secrets or having secrets kept. We actually had the following last month:

Her: I just bought your birthday present.

Me: Thanks.

Her: Don’t you want to know what it is?

Me: Nope.

Her: Do you want to look?

Me: No thanks, I’ll wait until my birthday.

Her: I’ll just put it here, in this drawer next to the TV set.

Me: Ok, you do that.

Her: But aren’t you curious?

And so on and so on…

A few years ago, she caught me standing in front of the jewelry counter after I had just bought her present, and she just would not let up asking what I had bought her. It was a five-hour train ride home from her mother’s house and the entire way she kept up a running stream: “Is it a necklace? Is it a bracelet? It is earrings? Is it gold? Is it jade? Is it pearl?” And for five hours I ha dto keep reciting “No. No. No. No. No…” This went on for a month.

When Christmas finally rolled around, she ripped open the wrapping to find a pair of the ugliest, tackiest, cheapest-looking earrings you could imagine. They were fuzzy pink puffballs with bits of foil stuck in them. You could have used them as fishing lures, but I think most fish are too discerning to even look twice at these things. They were hideous, and had been chosen as the precise thing she’d hate the most.

After about five minutes of her staring at them in silence, I gave her the pearl earrings I’d bought back when she caught me.

54

As the story goes, MIL gave each son what she thought were the correct gifts, but as they opened them, if it was wrong, she grabbed it back and gave it to the correct one. Christmas is a serious ritual in this family - one gift at a time opened while everyone else watches - I can just imagine my MIL skittering across the room to snatch a package from one son and hand it to another in mid-unwrap!

I don’t think it cured the brothers of snooping, but she never did the numbers thing again!

55

Seems obvious to me: your sister told her. How else would your mom know to differentiate between the three of you?

56

My wife is an incorrigible snoop, who not only doesn’t like to wait for her present, but can’t even be trusted to keep secret what she bought for others. Every Christmas it is the same story: she buys me something, I buy her something, and then she starts pestering me to know what it is - even to the point of asking co-workers and friends if they had any idea. :rolleyes: She then gets so desparate that she starts the “quid pro quo” game, where I give her a hint, she gives me a hint, and so on until all knowledge is gained, something along the lines of: “You’re present is blue and made out of paper. Give me a hint about mine!”

Of course she is disappointed when I don’t ask her about my gifts (I don’t even shake boxes… much.) So she starts dropping hints - broad hints, ones so wide that you could drive on them.

She also loves spoilers to her fave TV shows, and I am absolutely convinced that the two traits (snooping and spoiling) are two sides of the same coin. I don’t like spoilers, which, of course makes it hard on my wife - “Who am I going to talk spoilers to if you don’t want to hear them?”

Same planet, different worlds I guess. :wink:

57

I would always undo the tape very carefully to peek at waht was inside, and one year me and my sister got up while mom was at work and we unwrapped evetything. She was so mad and i think after that i was cured of unwrapping stuff.

58

My grandmother was the snoop in our family. There was absolutely no way she was going to let any present go more then a few minutes without being opened to find out what was inside.

I never bothered to do so. Simply didn’t matter to me. Although I am very helpful which led me to help my parents unload the car back when I was 7 or so and saw just the briefest glimpse of an A-Team action set. I said I saw nothing and a few days later got it from Santa. Accidental snooping, dammit!