The Christmas Hack That Ends Kids "I Want..." Demands

Christmas can be a challenging time of year. It’s the season which often brings out the best* in our kids. I want this.. and this. OH AND THIS! One Mum has found a Christmas hack that stops all nagging.

*Sarcasm/ By the best, I mean NOT AT ALL THE BEST.

It’s a Catch 22. Parents want the hot tips on their kids’ Christmas desires in their Santa letters, but at the same time, we don’t want to encourage that special kind of whiny, greedy, fight to the death, insistent type of behaviour kids reserve especially for Christmas.

So how to go about it? Read on to discover one mum’s genius hack to stop those inevitable toy store meltdowns at Christmas.

The ultimate Christmas hack

Kristina Watts put a post on Facebook about her go-to Christmas hack for this time of year. She uses this trick with her daughter Emmie, and we think it’s super clever. Clearly so do a lot of people because this one is going viral.

Kristina writes:

Once again my camera roll is FULL of pictures of Emerson with every single thing she wants for Christmas. Why…because it’s the most amazing parenting hack ever and has stopped MANY meltdowns! If you aren’t using this hack…listen up friends.

So what’s the Christmas hack?

The hack lies in the camera roll of your phone. When your darling child stops in front of you with the latest Toy Story 4 merch in a death-grip type hold, pleading with you “I really want this mummmmm”, whip your phone out fast and take a photo. Then calmly tell your non-greedy-not-at-all-possessed-by-Christmas sweetheart that you’ll take a photo of her with her awesome choice and you can send it to Santa so he knows what they really want. Then exit the toy aisle stage left with a calm and content child. It’s such an easy thing to do, it’s like some kind of Christmas MAGIC. Kids don’t believe in Santa? Just substitute someone else – grandma, Aunties, Dad, even the dog.

Kristina writes of her Christmas hack experience:

Magically, Emmie smiles, says cheese, asks to see the picture, then PUTS THE TOY DOWN AND WALKS AWAY. It’s magical. No tears. No tantrums (by either of us). And she forgets about all of them within minutes.

BLOOMIN’ GENIUS.

The Christmas hack which helps EVERYONE

Of course, Santa isn’t the only one who can use a visual clue when it comes to gift-giving. I definitely needed a little guidance when shopping for something named Forky and don’t even get me started on which one is Anna and which one is Elsa… So do send a quick visual text to anyone else who might be shopping for your little darlings this Christmas, you’ll be helping them out, trust me.

Share the Christmas hack!

Kristina says this tip has changed her life. Going by the 50,000 Facebook shares and the 15,000 comments Kristina’s post has had, we think she’s hit hack gold!

Maybe you’ve been doing this for ages, and you selfishly didn’t share this tip with me…or maybe you’re like me and this is about to rock your world. For real, try it friends.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to ask a stranger if they’ll kindly take a photo of me holding a Breville coffee machine for Santa…

If you have a Christmas hack to share, we’d love to hear it! And if you’re not quite brave enough to front up at the shops with the kids in tow to suss out what they want for Christmas, have them look over our 2019 Christmas gift guides instead – there’s LOTS of cool stuff for kids to see!