One fun Christmas “service” act we like to do is to surprise a neighbor with the “12 days of Christmas”.
(can you spot me?)
This year, we chose a family that has kids the same ages as our kids, and they are friends. I knew it might be hard for the kids to keep it a secret, plus they don’t have many hiding places in their front yard, so it might be difficult to avoid getting caught. We did some of the usual things,
day one, a carton of eggs (a partridge laid these eggs)
2- “two sided crackers” and we gave them flips. 
3-“three french fries” and we gave them a bag of frozen french fries. Of course, this day they may or may not have known what was going on, because Natalie lost the note on the way over. Seeing a bag of frozen french fries on the porch, they may not have made the connection to day 3. Oh well.
4-four pairs of socks
5-five gold fish. This was the day I decided to get really clever. Never a good idea when dealing with sneaky things, but I did it anyway. I gave them 5 packages of goldfish crackers, and instead of just delivering them all at once, I put two in the mailbox, then took 3 to the school. I went into the office, and after bribing the office staff with diet cokes, I asked if they could deliver these fish to each of the three kids that go to that school. They had little notes on them so the kids would know that the fish were part of the 12 days of Christmas. I made sure to say that these were NOT from me, and you had NO IDEA where these snacks came from, that we were being sneaky. They agreed and said they knew all about the sneaky. As I was coming out of the 5th grade classroom an hour later, who should I run into coming out of the office but (care to take a guess?) my friend–the one who we were doing the surprise for. She was right there, coming out of the office, holding ALL THREE of the bags of goldfish. What? That was not the plan! Did I not make myself clear that these were to go to the KIDS? She was checking in her daughter, who had had a doctor’s appointment that morning. She wanted to talk to me, so we walked out together. I tried NOT to look at the goldfish in her hands, and she didn’t mention it, so it wasn’t mentioned. Ugh. This always happens when I involve other people in our sneakyness. One year, we asked one of Megan’s friends to deliver a gift, and she took it to them and said, “This is from the Ericksons.” NO!!!! That is not the plan. Oh, well.
6-On the 6th day, we gave a big bag of potatoes. What? Potatoes? The note said, “These must be SOME special geese to lay these for you. I know, they are dumb. But sometimes I just don’t want to go to the store and I’m all out of ideas.
7- Seven swans a swimming. I had Cole, our resident origami expert, make up 7 origami swans, and then each swan was holding a coupon for a free junior frosty.
8-Eight ways a milky, and we gave them 8 little milky ways. Or we would have if we had 8 milky ways. We could only find 7 among the halloween candy, so we crossed out the 8 and put 7. Like I said before, we’re not professionals at this, it’s just whatever stuff we can dig up.
9-Nine was some foot creme, specially picked out by the nine ladies dancing, because all that dancing can make your feet tired, right?
10-Ok, I’ll admit it, I got really lazy on day 10, and I was not in the best mood, so they got a package of little Debbie’s snack cakes. Sigh.
11-We can’t remember. How sad is that?
12-For the twelfth day, we had a 12 pack of fanta, wishing them a “fantastic” Christmas. This friend actually called and told me they were going out of town, but she was going to bring something by before they left. Great, we thought. They’ll come to us. Then we can sing to them and give them their “12” gift, and we’ll be done. They never came by. Must have run out of time, since they were going out of town. So, we never did deliver day 12 to them, and hopefully they still don’t know. Well, unless they read this post, then they would know. Oops?
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