One of my favorite things to do at Christmas is Secret Santa gift exchanges. I know sometimes they don’t always go as planned and picking out gifts for people can be challenging, but the surprise and mystery of it all? I love it!!

When I get to do a blog campaign that involves a secret Santa? BONUS!! And when it is with one of my favorite stores to shop at? Well then it’s like Christmas!!! Wait…..

To me the most fun part about secret Santa is the reveal. JCPenny has the COOLEST way to help you reveal your identity. And I am truly not just saying that because I am supposed to. The inner tech nerd in me was GIDDY!!

You know those square bar codes called QR codes. Well if you download one of many apps onto your smart phone you can scan those codes and be taken to websites with all sorts of information. You can find them on all sorts of things these days and to me it is like a fun little detective game to scan them and see where they take you. Yep, I’m a nerd.

Well JCPenny has these Secret Santa Tags that you can put on your gifts. You scan the QR code and it takes you to a page where you input your cell number. Then you get a phone call where you are prompted to record a message for your gift recipient revealing who you are or sending them a holiday message. You put the tag on your gift and then when it is received, they scan the QR code and hear your personalized message! How fun is that?

Of course you and your gift recipient both need a smartphone, but for the tech geeks in your life I can’t think of a more creative way to tag your gifts. It was so ridiculously simple to use and I am dying to get my gift next week so I can play from the side of the recipient (here is a little video showing you exactly how it works).

Oh and FYI, we had a $50 limit to spend on our secret Santa and I cannot tell you how easy it was to find awesome gifts for under that price point. In fact, before even knowing I was going to be doing this blog campaign I shopped in JCPenny for gifts and that place is like Santa’s workshop. They had a whole section dedicated to stocking stuffers and I cleaned up! It is DEFINITELY a place to check out for your Christmas list.

Next week is the big reveal and I will be sharing with you what I got and hopefully we can peek in and see what my gift recipient thought of the gift I picked out. Fingers crossed everyone ends up happy!!

I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of jcpenney and received a jcpenney Secret Santa gift and a promotional item to thank me for participating.

We put our tree up last night (in case you need a brilliant tip about how to hang your lights on your tree, I have one). I firmly believe that Christmas decorating should occur the weekend after Thanksgiving Thursday. Not before. Not after. My hubby tried to fight me on it this year saying we had too much going on that weekend, but I fought back and won.

It is tradition. You don’t mess with tradition.

He understands this because growing up it was his tradition to get a real tree. I grew up with a fake tree and have tried for many years to convince him that this is the more economical solution. I almost got him to budge last year with some after Christmas sales, but in the end it didn’t work.

I should know better than to try but this year I brought my arguments to the table again. He looked at me in mock seriousness and said, “Having a fake tree at Christmas is like having a fake Jesus.” Okay then. Clearly the man has some VERY strong feelings about his trees.

As a side note: I posted this on Facebook and one of my friends noted that he must be very into live nativity scenes in the house because plastic ones would not do. How awesome would that be to have some camels and and a gaggle of shepherds hanging out on your coffee table?

Anyway, the house is decorated for Christmas and it just puts me in my happy place. The kids go to sleep and I turn off all the lights in the house except the Christmas tree and just bask in its glow. It is the most beautiful place in the world.

Until it isn’t. Until the daylight hours when I spend my time yelling, “Don’t touch that tree”. “Don’t get so close.” “What was that crash?????”

Yes, the kids were home from school approximately 2.3 seconds before we had our first ornament casualty. Actually Silas the littlest one of the bunch has been the most respectful of the tree. It was the big girls twirling around the living room to Christmas music that hit a branch and knocked an ornament to its death.

I am fairly confident that I am becoming a tree Scrooge. In fact I hashtagged #treescrooge today on Twitter. Is it against the spirit of Christmas to sit near my tree like a crotchety old man and scream at my kids “Stay away from my tree!!!!!”?

Forget that creepy little elf from the shelf. I am going to design some sort of Tree Scrooge that somehow screams at kids when they get within 3 feet of the tree. That’ll put everyone in the holiday spirit. Judging from the word on Twitter and Facebook, I am pretty sure I would make a killing.

Fess up in the comments. Are you a tree scrooge?