Naughty or nice? Temptation to peek gets the best of these readers
Merry Christmas, especially to the naughty among you.
When The Tribune asked for stories of peeking at gifts early, you responded with your tales of (removing) the tape.
Your stories have enlivened this holiday season with humor, surprises, not a little bit of guilt and from one snooper, unrepentant — and continuing — joy at still shaking whatever wrapped item he comes across. Thank you all for your honesty.
The following have been edited for spelling, punctuation, style and length:
A Christmas Day reflection
One year, my brother, sister and I had an agreement to wake the others up as soon as we woke on Christmas Day. We snuck out to a Christmas tree with a flashlight and looked at all the presents. We just got around to the other side of the tree when we were scared out of our holiday slippers! My parents had given my sister and I a full-length mirror that wasn’t wrapped. When we went around the corner, the flashlight showed up in the mirror and came back to us. Biggest shock ever!
— Joan Kintzele (Von Bergen)
Walkerton
United in snooping
My brother and I were left home alone quite a bit when both parents were working. We fought a lot, but we were united in our snooping. We looked until we found our wrapped gifts. Actually, after the first time, we knew exactly where to look because they were always in the same place in my parent’s walk-in closet. And as I remember we only did it at Christmas, not for our birthdays.
Mark was an expert at unwrapping gifts and re-wrapping the box so no one would ever notice. He had so much patience and such a look of concentration on his face when he was peeling the tape off. If he couldn’t get the tape off, he would slit the tape on a seam and then perfectly position a new piece of tape over the old. I was the bow person. I could make the bow look like the original.
I believe we did it for two years when I was somewhere between 12 and 15 with Mark being three years younger. We stopped when I found I was getting a beautiful skirt and sweater set and it didn’t fit. Trying to pretend on Christmas morning that I was excited about something I knew was going to be returned made me decide not to do it again.
When I quit, my younger brother did, too. I don’t think my parents ever knew. We never told, and they never brought it up, so I don’t think they ever discovered our peeking efforts.
— Ilene Crutchfield
Mishawaka
A VERY big letdown
My brother and I frequently unwrapped and peeked at Christmas presents in our early years, especially ones that were wrapped in shiny wrap that tape didn’t stick to well.
However, when I was around 12 and Danny around 13, we looked in the house and garage attics, the trunks of our parents’ cars and various other hiding places around the house and found every one of our gifts before they were wrapped. I don’t remember what all of them were, but I do remember that they included a saucer sled and some Avon cologne that was in a decanter that looked like a soda from a soda fountain.
We didn’t realize until Christmas morning that there were no gifts we hadn’t seen already. It was a VERY big letdown to have no surprises. I have never been tempted to peek since that day — even when my husband teases me and tries to get me to shake a package and guess what’s inside!
Addendum: My brother and I confessed after Christmas. My parents were probably disappointed that we had been so sneaky, but I think they knew we learned a very hard lesson.
— Debra Murray
South Bend
All aboard!
I came home from elementary school one day to find a train set hidden behind a table in the kitchen. My older siblings weren’t home yet. Boy, was I excited! I hadn’t even hoped for this gift.
It was about a month before Christmas and my mother had obviously hidden it on her lunch break. Not being able to fully check it out with older sister on her way home from school, the next few days I searched for it when I had time alone in the house. I couldn’t find it anywhere in the house.
After weeks of searching, I was getting worried. When the gifts were wrapped and under the tree, there were no packages that fit its size, nothing even close. I finally decided that my mother had sent it to my cousin in California for his Christmas.
I threw a fit because I was sure it was gone and confronted my mother, accusing her of sending my cousin this train set when she should have known that I wanted one. What a relief on Christmas morning when it arrived under our tree.
I still wonder how I could have been such a brat to my mother.
— Richard Boyd
Three Rivers
At last!
As a child, the appeal of finding your Christmas presents early is pretty strong, especially when your friends talk about how great it was when they found their presents early.
Off and on over the years I would look in the usual places but was never successful in finding them … until I was 9 years old. I wasn’t even trying to find my gifts, but I stumbled upon some plastic bags filled with games and toys I didn’t recognize. As I was looking through the bags, it occurred to me I had probably found my Christmas presents.
At last!
I excitedly looked through all the bags, noting what was in them. Now I could tell my friends I had found my presents early, too!
My excitement only lasted until Christmas morning, however. I realized I had to fake being surprised and excited about the gifts, or my parents would know I peeked, even though it wasn’t intentional.
I did my best to put on a good show that Christmas morning, but I was certain my parents could tell. After having to feign excitement that year, I never went snooping again because it really took the fun out of truly being surprised.
Many years later, when I was in college, my family was talking about finding Christmas presents early. I confessed to my parents that one year I had accidentally found my presents and what a terrible Christmas it was pretending to be excited.
Apparently, I did a good job faking my surprise that year because my parents said they never knew I had found them.
— Sandy Basham-Hubbard
Mishawaka
Santa's hiding places
Yes, Virginia, I am a snooper along with my two brothers around Christmas time. As young boys we would always snoop around the house while our parents were still at work, looking and finding many of our Christmas presents. For several years, we looked under the bed and in their closet, which was always full of clothes and boxes on the upper shelf. That was a good hiding place for Santa.
We had to get the packages back behind their stuff though, so we had to be really careful to put them back just as we found them so they wouldn’t know we peeked. They even hid presents, or they thought they hid them, out in the garage up in the rafters. We found those, too!
One year, they even hid a gift behind the big sofa. We found that one, as I remember, just a day before Christmas. Lucky for them it was already wrapped.
We were big snoopers, but that led to a discovery that we could really guess correctly what was actually in the wrapped presents. Sometimes we could tell what was in the package just by looking at the boxes but most times by giving them a little shake, which we always did anyway! We did this for many, many years, and from what I can remember, as it was 50-plus years ago, they only found out we had snooped once.
I don’t really snoop anymore, as it is just my wife and I at home and we have everything we need and not too many wants other than good health. But if there is a Christmas package around, you can bet that I will pick it up and give it a shake and try to guess what is inside because Santa Claus always comes to our house and surprises us with his warmth and kindness.
May we all remember the real meaning of the time of year that it is and thank God for it.
Merry Christmas to all, and snoop on, America!
— B.J. Hague
Dowagiac
Just like Jackie Kennedy
In December of 1963 I was in third grade. It was the month after President Kennedy was assassinated. I must have been snooping, because I found my presents under my parents’ bed. While I usually only received one or two gifts, there was a bag with my first and only Barbie — who had three wigs! Amazingly, there was also a Ken, Midge, Alan and Skipper doll! Barbie was gorgeous! She had a red velvet coat and a pill box hat — just like Jackie Kennedy wore! I tried to act surprised Christmas Eve (that is when our family opened presents) — but I was surprised that my Mom had also sewn an ice skating outfit for Barbie out of red corduroy and a bathrobe for me out of the same material! Coincidentally, that was the same material we had used to make a Santa ornament’s hat.
— Mary Ramsdell
South Bend
“I’m Dreaming of a Sharp Christmas”
Here is a peeking story sure to make the naughty list dozens of times over:
The tree had been up for weeks: a white flocked tree with giant gold balls and gold ribbon flowing to the floor from a glittering gold star at the top. The tree was different every year. That was part of Christmas. The presents were amassing. They had started the Friday after Thanksgiving and there were more added every day. They came out four at a time and we counted them, making sure no one was getting more presents than anyone else. Christmas was so close — so close — like Christmas Eve close, but we couldn’t wait.
The presents were now beyond the base of the tree, beginning to spill into the room. We always got everything we asked for and more.
We shook the presents. We squeezed the presents. We stroked the presents. We poked the presents. We went over them lightly with our fingers trying to feel for any telltale bumps in the packaging that might give some indication of what we were getting.
Nicole, my stepsister, and I were teenagers (maybe 13 and 15). We both wanted the gold-plated curling iron. The really good one that made steam rise from your hair when you used it. I mainly wanted it because Nicole wanted it and anything she had was bound to be cool. She knew a lot about makeup and hair and clothes — all the things I was just learning. She had a boyfriend, which I thought was fascinating.
We searched and searched for the curling irons, but none of the packages felt like the one. Once our parents went to bed, we continued our search. I noticed on one of the packages a little bubble of air in the tape between the two seams of paper on the back. If I could somehow exploit that air bubble and look inside.
“What if we cut the tape?” I said.
“What if we what?” she asked.
“See this bubble?” I said, pointing to the package, “What if we take scissors and carefully cut along this seam.” (My Grandma was a seamstress, so I knew a little about materials and how to handle a pair of scissors.)
“Do you think it will work?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But I think if we get some scissors and try it with the package with the most-bubbly tape — we could try it. Then we’ll just put a new piece of tape exactly over the old tape.”
Nicole would stick her neck out, but only so far. “I’ll get the scissors,” she said. The minute she said it I knew I would be handling the scissors. We were a good team that way. As she got the scissors in the kitchen, I began going through our presents.
I found one that was kind of bumpy and had three bubbles in the tape. “This is the one,’ I thought. “If this works, we will be able to see all of our presents before tomorrow.”
Nicole came back, and I took the scissors in my right hand and lifted up on the seam. The tape split a little all by itself. My plan was working.
Then the tape quit splitting. I went in with the scissors. The width of the blade was not made for cutting tape off of Christmas presents. It wasn’t working. The experiment was over. Or was it? The materials weren’t going to change. What we needed was a new tool.
“Does Dad have any razor blades in his shop,” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Could you get me one?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
The tape cut like Jell-O under the blade. The key to the whole operation was to cut at an angle so you didn’t cut through the paper. We spent the rest of the night quietly cutting open our presents on the kitchen counter and taping them back together.
We did them one at a time, so if we got caught, it would look like we had opened only one present. Though, I’ll admit, the presence of a razorblade in the scenario would have increased the severity of the punishment exponentially. We were careful. We were patient. We were quiet.
Once we were up, I felt like we were doing a pretty good acting job, but there was a glint in my stepmother’s eye that made me think she knew we were up to something.
As we pretended to be surprised and grateful, I realized slitting open your presents with a razorblade on Christmas Eve sort of takes away some of the Christmas spirit.
— Laura Hammonds
Mishawaka
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Naughty or nice? Temptation to peek gets the best of these readers
