The Christmas recycle

About six weeks before Christmas, ask your children for a list of things they may want as a gift.

Wait a month for the list not to arrive.

Then spend a lot of money on fuel driving to the shops and back.

And spend hours of your life driving round to find a suitable parking space.

Choose some gifts that you think they may like

Get a receipt, preferably a gift receipt.

Put the gifts in carrier bags.

Take them home

Repeat the process for as long as your bank balance will allow.

Then repeat the process until as long as your credit card / rating will allow.

Buy enough wrapping paper to cover the Isle of White.

Hide the gifts.

Pretend to your children that you haven’t got anything for them so far (because you haven’t had a list) and that Santa exists.

 

Later, take the gifts out of their carrier bags.

Take off all the pricing information.

Wrap the gifts carefully in wrapping paper (see earlier) adding bows and tags according to importance / relevance.

Hide the now wrapped gifts.

Save the receipts somewhere safe.

Keep the carrier bags in a cupboard under the stairs.

 

On Christmas day bring all of the gifts, or presents as they are now called, from wherever they were hidden and place them on the floor / chairs / under tree as appropriate.

Say go!

Watch your children as they rip the paper off their presents as quickly as they can.

Ask them to place their presents in piles based upon where they were bought from.

Retrieve the carrier bags from under the stairs.

Place the presents in the carrier bags according to their shop of origination.

Hand over the receipts to your children and ask them to put them somewhere safe.

Recycle the discarded wrapping paper in the appropriate bin.

Eat Christmas lunch.

 

On Boxing Day let your children take the presents in their carrier bags along with the receipts back to the shops.

Let them exchange the presents for something that they really wanted and should have put on their list (see earlier) but probably at a lower value than the original items that you bought.

Shrug your shoulders.

 

You have now completed the Christmas recycle.  Relax until next year.

 

Alternatively on Christmas Eve you could:

Ask your children for their bank account details.

Transfer the amount of money you were going to spend anyway from your account into their accounts.

Wish them a merry Christmas

Watch them go to the sales on Boxing Day to get what they wanted.