This week's theme is "Clever Holiday Tips". Here's mine:

I had always spent DAYS wrapping every present - creating handmade cards, bows, and stamping papers, etc. That all ended six years ago when I married my husband. His family had always wrapped one present for under the tree and then put everything else into (or under) their stockings. I thought "wow..no more nights spent wrapping presents..no more late night trips to wal-mart because I've run out of scotch tape!?!?!" So, I made Christmas stockings for every family member that year - they are about 2 ft wide and almost 4 ft long. Every person has his or her own and we simply wrap ONE thing for each family member and then everything else goes into the stocking. Our kids have MORE fun finding what's in the stockings than they ever did unwrapping presents. It also solves the battery/engineering/trash problems too!