mattrhere t1_j1klv30 wrote on December 25, 2022 at 3:09 AM

My mom did this for every birthday growing up. It was our birthday “hunt”. We had clues tramped all over the house and yard until we finally arrived at our presents.

I couldn’t tell you a single gift I got as a child but I remember the hunts

RunawayHobbit t1_j1kx7ju wrote on December 25, 2022 at 5:04 AM

Mine did it for Easter! She hid our baskets and wrote these really incredible rhyming clues. Absolutely loved it

chapstikcrazy t1_j1kypj4 wrote on December 25, 2022 at 5:21 AM

My mom did this too!! Its been such a blast to carry on the tradition.

caydenslayz t1_j1lnhk1 wrote on December 25, 2022 at 11:25 AM

So did mine! But instead of clues there was a string and I had to follow it all over the house, outside, back in the house, back outside until I found the basket. Me, my sister, and cousins all loved that

erbn t1_j1mrbd2 wrote on December 25, 2022 at 6:04 PM

Love doing this for Easter. Last year my 8 year old found an egg different from the rest hidden in the backyard, with a rhyming clue that led to eight other similar eggs, with the rhyming slips rolled up in a set of cheap but pretty jeweled rings. The final egg was a golden one the size of a grapefruit buried in our sandbox that had led light strips for my daughters room. I regret the blinding light show every night before bed, but she’s still talking about the egg hunt that rabbit sent her on.

suegenerous t1_j1mkt1z wrote on December 25, 2022 at 5:13 PM

I used to do this for Easter baskets, too! Probably not all rhyming but definitely tried to make it interesting!

blay12 t1_j1omolc wrote on December 26, 2022 at 3:27 AM

And you know, you don't even have to be a kid to enjoy these things! My family has always been about stretching out Christmas gift opening, and as everyone got older and the general number of gifts dwindled (at least, from when we were kids and would have like 10-15 little-medium toys and one or two "big" gifts) down to a handful of nice things each, we needed something that went beyond one-at-a-time gift opening as a group and started this despite the "kids" being in our 20s at the time. My mom handled all of the clues for the first few years, but then in the last two my siblings and I have started stepping up to do it ourselves and put our own creative spins on it (this year was my year, so I wrote a song that set up a story about an evil elf that escaped from the north pole and stole a bunch of our presents and continued that narrative in longer-form rhyming clues than we normally do).

Like, two of us are already in our 30s with the youngest not far behind, none of us have kids, and we still look forward to it every year. Also helps that once the gifts are found and gathered, we break for mimosas/bloody marys and breakfast before getting into the actual opening. It's just fun to have a Christmas morning that lasts a few hours rather than 5 minutes when people are just tearing into things on their own.