The Christmas Snooper

In my day, I was a horrendous Christmas snooper. I remember being probably 9 and we lived out in the country in Kansas. That meant we had animals to take care of and being winter, it was COLD! So my mom took care of the animals while we kids stayed in the house nice and toasty warm (and by ourselves). I'm certain that if my mother hadn't given us the warning: don't go in mom and dad's bedroom, I wouldn't have had any interest in going in there, but since she did give that warning, I just couldn't keep myself out of there! So I went in and found a big box that wasn't taped up and I looked inside. Jackpot! The presents for me and my little brother. Of course I had to share my discovery so I called my little brother and we looked for a while and then put things back the way they had been. I guess we weren't too successful in getting things back in the same spots because later that night I heard my full name hollered and I got two spankings that night. One for getting into the gifts and one for lying about it. My little brother got a spanking, too, just not as much as me because I led him down the path of Christmas present snooping. I think he learned his lesson and didn't snoop anymore. Me? Well, that's another story. I still snooped, I just got sneakier. I actually partially unwrapped presents just to see what they were! I never got busted for that, though..told you I got sneakier!
Fast forward to Christmas 2007. I had my son Ian's Christmas presents in my closet in a box on a high shelf. When he was supposed to be playing in his bedroom, he had actually gone and gotten a chair, pulled down one of his gifts, examined it and then brought it to me and told me it was as nice as he thought it was going to be! I can say he wasn't being sneaky! I can also tell you he came very close to losing that gift (he probably should have!)
Fast forward to this Christmas. This past Sunday, in fact. Ian had a Christmas program practice so Colin and I decided to run a couple of errands. We ended up buying a couple of little gifts for Ian. Unfortunately for us, Colin is not sneaky and had left the gifts uncovered in the back of the van (no trunk in a minivan). Also, he had left the van unlocked and Ian had heard me tell one of his teachers that we had done a little Christmas shopping. So while we were talking to some people from our church, Ian was hanging over the back seat in the van looking at his gifts! I don't think he saw much. Next time, I'll put the bags in, I know how to hide things in the back of the van!
Well, at least my Christmas snooper isn't sneaky, at least, not yet!