Remember Today

This afternoon, as is our daily ritual every school day at 3:45, C & M & I walked out of our house to go down to the bus stop to greet Logan. Except, today, unlike any other day, there was a large, full-color box in the driveway with a highly-detailed picture of a drum set on it. Did I mention this box was large and full-color? The two boys squealed with delight and ran to the box, saying "Drums! Is that ours? I want that!" I followed quickly behind and did my best to cover up the shipping label with items I had in my hand. But, of course, even with the shipping label covered, Camden spots the address hand-scrawled in large Sharpie letters, with, what? our street and house number! "It is ours, see," he exclaimed leaving me clamoring for the right words. "Uhhh, I think UPS messed up. This can't be ours. I don't know. I'll have to check with your Dad {to consult on the lie that we will concoct to cover up this huge blunder of gift giving}. I have one question, at this time of year what is BJ's thinking sending a box in it's original packaging?
So now we are left with a few lies options: tell the boys that Daddy ordered this for a friend at work to give to his child {might raise the question of how sneaky parents can be to hide presents from their children}; tell L & C that Santa couldn't fit this in his sleigh so he shipped it early and it's for M {starts them wondering exactly how does Santa fit all those gifts in his sleigh, and they probably wouldn't keep the surprise secret from M}, tell the boys that Santa has started some trial runs in preparation for his big trip next week, and this box must have fallen out of his sleigh {ok, really far-fetched, and the laws of physics would come into play here, even for a 5- and 7-year-old}. So here's the one we settled on, thought up by my brilliant husband: we'll tell them that UPS messed up in the delivery, but Mommy saw how excited you were when you saw the box that Daddy made a trip to the mall after work to ask Santa if he could possibly bring drums for you. Whew, problem solved. Now let's just hope they BELIEVE. And if this starts them questioning the reality of Santa, we'll just bring out the movie Miracle on 34th Street.