Deciding 12 Days of Christmas is NOT for me

 For years, doing a secret santa 12 Days of Christmas has been on my bucket list. I remember as a child doing the same thing for a family in our ward. It was so fun to drop off the treats with adrenaline pumping as we knocked, ran, and drove away. I wanted my children to experience the same thing. This year I finally made up my mind to do it. I'm so mad at myself right now that I didn't get a picture of what we planned! The gifts turned out well, but I missed the boat by choosing to do this for a couple families AFTER we moved over 20 minutes away from them. Timing the delivery to when we were in town was quite tricky. Most of the time I only had 1 or 2 children with me, which defeated the whole purpose of having the whole family experience the feeling of service and fun. 

Also, I didn't realize that everyone in Boise travels for the holidays. We ended up having to deliver multiple days at one time for one family because we knew they were headed out of town. And we ended up delivering 10 presents at one time 2 days after  Christmas to another family because of their travels as well. And all that eliminates the fun anticipation of receiving a secret gift delivery each day. 

I think next year, I'll just make a simple delicious treat and deliver it to all my friends. It'll be the same amount of work and money, but condensed to a much shorter time and will be able to be done for more families.

Also, I didn't realize that everyone in Boise travels for the holidays. We ended up having to deliver multiple days at one time for one family because we knew they were headed out of town. And we ended up delivering 10 presents at one time 2 days after  Christmas to another family because of their travels as well. And all that eliminates the fun anticipation of receiving a secret gift delivery each day. 

I think next year, I'll just make a simple delicious treat and deliver it to all my friends. It'll be the same amount of work and money, but condensed to a much shorter time and will be able to be done for more families.

Lydia drew the cutest cards to go  with each treat. We didn't get a picture of the first day (I think she drew a bird in a pear tree. As you can see, we tried to be punny when we could). Here's what we did (I really wish I got pictures of the presents, darn it!):

Day 1 - canned pears 

Day 2: Dove chocolates

Day 3: A can of good chicken soup (with chicken crossed out and wrote HEN). For one family we also included a loaf of french bread. Although we actually forgot to deliver the soup to the first family, so it was just french bread. Yet another reason I'm not doing this: too complicated!

Day 4: A small kit to make a bird house I got from the Dollar Tree

Day 5 - Peach Ring candies

Day 6 - six eggs (very useful if I do say so myself, seeing as eggs are $3-$6 per dozen right now. Gah!)

Day 7 - Body wash (I wanted bubble bath, but couldn't find any at the Dollar Tree)

Day 8 - a half gallon of milk (and some ginger cookies for the first family)

Day 9 - Gingerbreak men cookies. (Recognize this one? It's the dancing lady emoji :D)

Day 10 - package of microwave popcorn

Day 11 - a bag of hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows with directions written on the bag to add "piping" hot water ;)

Day 12 - Pretzel sticks glued to hostess cupcakes. I had Lydia draw it into the card so that they might see that the cupcakes were supposed to be drums