'Tis the season for games of hide and peek

Stashing gifts away until Christmas Day takes savvy ... and a good memory.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
For years at Paulette Sullivan's house in Plum, Pa., part of the plumbing took a vacation right around Thanksgiving. That's when the downstairs bathroom stopped working and, for a good reason, did not flush again until the new year dawned.
"The kids didn't have a key to get into it," Sullivan said, adding that she and her husband turned the powder room into a hiding place for gifts. That was after she heard sad stories from neighbors who stuffed presents in garbage bags in their garages, then mistakenly deposited them at the curb for trash pickup.
So, during their childhood, Dan and Brian Sullivan played in a game room, unaware that their Christmas toys were locked in the powder room just a few feet away.
Of course, a telescope and a tricycle presented challenges, Paulette Sullivan said, adding that the telescope's legs and the tricycle's handlebars did not go on until the last possible minute.
All wrapped up
Jamie Lebovitz, who celebrates Hanukkah with her family in Mount Lebanon, Pa., never had this problem.
"We don't hide our kids' presents -- we display them. We have two kids and wrap their presents in different gift-wrapping. ... If we buy a new gift, we immediately wrap it and place it in the appropriate pile."
But Lebovitz offers her home to friends and neighbors who need to hide Christmas gifts.
"They come over and get their presents late Christmas Eve -- and of course, I always offer to help be an 'elf' and wrap the presents," Lebovitz said.
Now high-technology is getting into the act. Radio Shack is marketing camera and motion-sensor systems that parents can install to remotely monitor these gift hiding places. They receive a text message or e-mail alerting them that someone is lurking where they shouldn't be. Such systems cost 99.
Clever parents
But such elaborate devices are no match for parents who have successfully endured for years on cleverness (which is free).
In Pleasant Hills, Pa., Denise Schreiber turned to the kitchen to hide her small gifts. She cleaned out a used Crisco can, stowed gifts such as jewelry or candy in it, then returned it to the pantry shelf.
"My daughter never had any reason to look in the Crisco can," Schreiber said.
Mary Lynn Baronett of Bethel Park, Pa., stows her small gifts in the back of a desk drawer or filing cabinet, where tax files or other boring paperwork are kept.
"No one is going to want to look there!" she said.
Car trunks are popular spots. For the past 12 years, out in North Huntingdon, Pa. Cathy Rajcan has used the roomy trunk of her father's classic Ford Crown Victoria, a 1970s model he keeps covered and inside a garage during winter.
"He doesn't use it in the winter, so we hide gifts in the trunk of the car," Rajcan said, adding that the locked trunk is ideal for hiding Little Tikes gifts.
Locked up tight
But cars have their drawbacks, said Debra Lane of Upper St. Clair, Pa., who recalled what happened to her father many years ago.
"A very bad place to hide gifts is in the trunk of your car, unless you want to be out on a freezing Christmas Eve pouring hot water on a frozen trunk lock. Thanks to helpful neighbors it turned out well," Lane said.
Once she had children of her own, Lane found other places to stow presents.
"The best place to hide gifts is a large suitcase in a storage closet. You can lock it but kids never seem to think to look in there anyway. We thought the blanket chest (under the blankets) was a great place, but my now-grown daughter tells me they found them that year," Lane said.
Ruth Berrott's husband, Ron, hid her gifts in a dishwasher, "because I never used it. It wasn't built-in and I didn't like dragging it across the kitchen floor. He could have hidden them in the stove because I didn't cook much either at that time," said Berrott, who lives in Plum.
However, some people outsmart themselves.
"My mother always hid gifts and then would forget where they were. Sometimes you'd get a present months later when she found it again," said Lou Ann Haney, who lives in Murrysville, Pa.