It was a cold December evening and it was finally Christmas Eve! My brother, sister and I were all ready for bed when my younger brother William asked me for the millionth time “ What do you think you’re gonna get for Christmas?” I responded “I have no clue but I really hope it's something good!” My older sister Elisabeth then yelled out “I’m for sure getting an iphone!” and William screamed “I’m getting LEGOs!” Everyone was so excited to see what they were going to get. I pulled my blankets up tight under my chin and waited for my mom to tuck me in and say goodnight. As I waited, I continued to dream about what I might get for Christmas..maybe another toy or some clothes? Suddenly I heard my mom racing loudly down the stairs and I was scared because I thought maybe it was an emergency but she had just forgotten that her bath was running and was rushing to turn it off before it overflowed. She kissed my forehead and wished me sweet dreams as she closed my door, and I fell asleep dreaming about all the presents I would get in the morning. The next morning I woke up to the sound of William screaming at the top of his lungs. My mom and I got up and ran downstairs to see what he was screaming about and saw right away why; there were no presents under the tree! What? No presents? Were they stolen? William and I were so sad and disappointed that we started to cry and my mom, who looked shocked and confused, hugged us close. She said “This is definitely a mystery..maybe Dad hid the presents throughout the house to make it an extra special treasure hunt Christmas?” William and I looked at each other and suddenly stopped crying. A treasure hunt Christmas sounded pretty cool so we started straight away looking everywhere for the hidden presents. William and I decided to start in the basement and work our way up to each level and look through each room to see if we could find any of our Christmas presents. “Hey what’s that in the corner under the blankets?” said William, super excited. Our basement was used to store a lot of things during the winter so in the end, what looked like our presents were just boxes of summer clothes and camping equipment. So after searching the entire basement without finding anything we moved up to the first level. We were making a lot of noise by this point, moving furniture and flipping things upside down so by the time we finished the living room, my dad had woken up and met us in the kitchen where we were looking through the cupboards. Totally confused, and rubbing his eyes he asked “ What are you guys looking for?” William responded “All the Christmas presents that you hid!” My dad didn’t find this funny and he said “The Christmas presents should be under the tree..” So he rushed into the living room only to see an empty space beneath the tree and he slapped both hands over his mouth in complete surprise. Once again William and I panicked..could our gifts really have been stolen? All of a sudden we heard my mom screaming from upstairs. My dad, William and I ran upstairs as fast as we could to see my mom standing by the open door to my sister Elisabeth’s bedroom with both hands on her forehead and her mouth hanging open. I will never forget seeing my sister's bedroom that morning..all of our Christmas presents, unwrapped, were scattered around the room with wrapping paper torn all over the floor, and my sister hiding under her covers, refusing to come out. Elisabeth had stolen and opened all the presents! Before we could react, my mom jumped into the room and shut the door behind her before we could see all of our presents.

My dad took us downstairs to eat a huge Christmas breakfast and once my mom came downstairs she told us that she had equipped Elisabeth with everything she needed to re-wrap the presents. So as a consequence for stealing and opening all of the Christmas presents, Elisabeth had to re-wrap all the presents and hide them throughout the house for us while William and I were skating and tobogganing. In the end, the mystery of the missing presents was solved, and from that Christmas onwards my parents continued to do a treasure hunt Christmas instead of simply having the gifts be placed under the tree.