Christmas … 007 style. Or, perhaps, in our case, G-Force style. Right here, insert some Mission Impossible music …

 That was me this year. A month before Christmas, I had no idea what my girls wanted. I’ve known since last YEAR what my then 13 year old son wanted. Can anyone say iPhone 5? Of course that became iPhone 4S once that came out.

Thanksgiving came and went still without ideas for my twins.

December 1 passed.

December 10 passed.

By this point, I’d started to get worried. Sure, I could have given them an empty box and they’d probably have been super happy, but I wanted something awesome. Something bold. Something … meaningful.

At the same time, I was saving my pennies for that iPhone … getting closer and closer and closer to Christmas.

Out of the blue, my girls started talking about Hamsters, Gerbils and Guinea Pigs while my son continued on with his desire for the iPhone. We’d told him an iPhone was too expensive. We’d told the girls that Santa couldn’t deliver animals … unless Mommy and Daddy approved it. Worse, Mommy and Daddy would not approve it unless their room was spit-shine cleaned.

They cleaned. The whole room. 95% by themselves.

The boy still wanted his iPhone. We continued to tell him it was too expensive.

Friends said Santa COULDN’T deliver animals.

The sad faces mounted even as hubby and I agreed … iPhone 4S for boy and after much research, 2 guinea pigs for the girls. Yep. We were going to make Santa as awesome as can be! (Note: the boy already knows how all this happens, but we made SURE he didn’t think he’d get the phone … sure of it. Little did we know we were almost right anyway)

So … easy, right?

Both gifts had to come from Santa.

BOTH OF THEM.

And Santa only comes to Grandma and Grandpa’s house 2 hours away.

With the idea that we’d get the phone first (because it should be the easiest), we headed to our local AT&T store.

No black iPhone 4S 16Gb in black phones.

What?? You mean 2 weeks before Christmas you don’t have a phone for me? 😉 (I jest, but I did actually say that — I just hadn’t realized they’d be out!) Go to the Apple store and they’ll take care of you, the answer was given to us.

Off to Southpoint.

Sure, they could sell us an iPhone and they had them in stock, but … the phone had to be activated right then.

RIGHT THEN.

That meant no surprise.

Ugh.

Can’t do that. So we tried another AT&T store. Amazingly, they had a white iPhone 4S 16Gb. White? No way my black-wearing son would go for a girly white phone.

Nope. I knew it. Hubby knew it.

But we bought it anyway with the promise from AT&T that they’d call us if another came in… but that the likelihood that close to Christmas was slim to none. Afterward, sure. Before … nope.

We had to try or the entire gift would be horrible (in this case).

In the meantime, we trudged to the pet store. What? You mean you don’t recommend we mix to piggies that aren’t from the same litter? But you only have 1 each!

Off to pet store #2.

And 3.

And 4.

“We’re getting some in tomorrow,” said one place.

“We have 7 males,” said Petsmart. Woohoo! You win. Off we went. Squirrel and Oreo were in a cage together and we took ’em along with a temporary cage, food, toys, everything.

But then we had a problem.

The kids were still home. We had 1 week that we’d have to HIDE THE PIGGIES.

HIDE THE PIGGIES???

Yep.

HIDE THE PIGGIES.

For 3 days the piggies lived in my studio, and my hubby and I would go there and say hi three times a day, sneaky out under the idea that we needed to get food or donuts or run an errand. It worked.

By the time the kids left for Grandma and Grandpa’s (they went on 12/21, we were to go 12/24) the piggies came home … temporarily. They still had to make the trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s AND stay hidden for another 12+ hours until Santa could deliver them.

But how? They make noise. They have to be fed. They need to be cuddled.

They HAD TO STAY HIDDEN.

Our solution came in a much willing Daddy to deliver piggies to one place at 11:00 in the morning and at midnight on Christmas day, to go get them. Midnight on Christmas day! In the cold. From one place to another so Santa could make his delivery.

At 7:00 am all three of my kids raced upstairs from our makeshift ‘bunkhouse’ in the basement with what expectations, I’ll never know. I’m pretty sure my son didn’t believe we wouldn’t get him a phone. I’m pretty sure the girls had NO idea what Santa could do.

The result? Three very, very, very happy kids and one who said …

“See, Mom? Santa can do anything.”

And I agreed.

Every gone to these lengths to make your kids ‘small’ dreams come true? Share in the comments!

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