Christmas Kit

If you have kids then you know how important it is to get all those new Christmas toys up and running as quickly as possible on Christmas morning!

Well, my obsessive-compulsive need to be completely prepared led me to this idea our first Christmas with a little one.  A Christmas Kit!

I just used a plastic container large enough to hold everything (it may have even had a former life as a lunchmeat container).  Then I filled it with all the things I thought we might need.

Here is a list of what I came up with:

• pocket knife (how many times have you cut your finger on the shirt box trying to break the tape?)
• batteries (check what batteries you will need when you purchase the toy...and buy extras!)
• screwdriver (phillips and flat head)
• wire cutters ("Wire cutters?" you may ask.  But have you seen the way they attach toys to the packaging nowadays?  With either black box quality zip ties or twist ties that are so wound around the toy you need to be a rocket scientist to sort it all out!  And scissors just won't "cut" it!  Plus it dulls them.  Just pull out the wire cutters and give them the "what for"!!)

This is what our kit looks like:

We just have the four of us on Christmas morning and usually the only gifts are ones from each other or from my grandmother.  Consequently it's easy to keep up with who gave what.  But if you have a big Christmas shindig, a notepad and pencil for writing down who gave what (for thank you notes later) is a good idea.

Something else I do is keep all the kid's owners manuals (for their toys, not the kids themselves!) together in a separate file.  To do this I just slide them in a gallon sized zip top baggie and drop them in a hanging file in our file cabinet.  Then if you need to refer back you just grab the one with all the kid stuff!

Hopefully this helps keep the Christmas cheer going on Christmas morn for you and yours!