Christmas codes

So seeing as half of my 6-Pack no longer officially believes in Santa I have thrown a bit of fun into the mix this year. Unofficially, as soon as they no longer believe in Santa (or choose to ruin the Santa game for younger siblings) they no longer get those special “Santa” gifts. This keeps older mouths quiet in front of younger children’s ears. It’s a magical time of excitement and wonder! If you ruin this for my child I will smack you.

While mine have been appreciative of what has been done for them in the name of Santa (thanking us gratefully when I they figure it out), during some really bad times our family has twice been the recipient of a Christmas in the name of Saint Nicholas. Our family makes Santa a game, but we honor the man and the tradition of the real St. Nicholas and his loving selfless giving done in honor of his love for Christ.

Our kiddos (when the budget allows) get three gifts each. Jesus got three so three is good enough. (If you do the math that’s still a lot of gifting on Mama and Papa’s budget: 6 x 3). The children draw names to swap gifts. This means they each get one gift from a sibling, one gift from Mama and Papa, and one “Santa” gift.

This year’s additional fun came in the form of coded gift tags. No names. No to/from. Simply a number. A number that is significant to each child in a consistent manner.

The rules:

• They must decode the number to open the gift. HA!
• They must work together to figure out the code. HA!HA!
• They must present a united front with the final answers for confirmation. HA!HA!HA!
• If they haven’t figured it out by Christmas Eve (after church) then I will give them a logic puzzle to figure out which number belongs to which child, but they still have to figure out the significance of the number. HA!HA!HA!HA!

I caved on number four and gave them the puzzle tonight. I can’t believe how much hand holding they needed. I gave them some leeway as we’ve been struggling with one having pneumonia for two weeks. It’s been rough and we needed the fun.

The numbers: 122, 118, 105, 41, 15, 14

Here’s the puzzle:

1. The highest number belongs to the oldest child.
2. The lowest number does not belong to the youngest child.
3. One number belongs to the person whose number of letters in his/her name minus 2 is equal to that number.
4. The next two highest numbers belong to the two siblings whose names have the same number of letters.
   • a. For one sibling multiply that number by four and add ten.
   • b. For the other multiply that number by four and subtract three.
   • c. The higher number belongs to the younger of those two siblings.
5. The remaining number belongs to one of the last two siblings not yet assigned a number.

Note: The fifth clue is not even needed. 4a and 4b are not even needed (no one caught that). Amazingly the third clue took the longest. *eye roll from me* The answer was 15. Now see if you can do the rest, even without the names info I bet you can.

They are still trying to figure out how each number realtes to each of them, but they have until, well, there are 12 days of Christmas and the first one is on December 25th!