in about one month, I am taking my family to Disneyland for Christmas. I want this to be a huge surprise for my daughters, and I need some suggestions on how to surprise them.
I’ve been a couple of times when I was a kid (my grandmother used to work there) but neither my fiancé nor our kids have been. This will be their first trip.
I’ve searched the internet for ideas about how to surprise kids with a trip to Disneyland, and some are cute but many don’t seem to be quite what I’m looking for.
We started by telling the girls that Christmas was going to be tight this year. We didn’t put up a lot of decorations and have encouraged the girls to make their own decorations this year. This has led to impromptu art shows where they showed off their creativity.
The next thing we did was told them that we had a meeting with Santa. We were not blatant about it, but we did suggest that we talk to him about Christmas. We alluded to a promise that Santa made,Implying that any gifts they receive this year would be because of him, not us.
The next part of the plan is for them to receive a letter from Santa saying they’ve been extremely good this year and they’ve made it on Santa’s TOP SECRET EXTRA NICE LIST. The letter would have a secret website (http://northpoleworkshop.org) they need to visit and enter their name, which will then automatically send my fiancé and I a text message with “further instructions”. This makes it look like it’s from Santa, but he’s getting parents help.
This list is a list of 30 kids from around the world who have done something extraordinary the past year. 10 are without siblings, 20 are sibling pairs. They, of course, are one of the siblings pairs.
But this is where I’m stuck. Our plan is to pick them up from school on their last day before Christmas break with the car packed and fully loaded for the trip. They will learn about it on the way there. But I’m not sure how to bring it all together and wrap it up, no pun intended.
This afternoon I had the idea that I would box up some Disney necessities for the trip, including a lanyard, tickets, and anything else they might need, and have that in a bigger box with another letter from Santa. I would then deliver them to the school and ask the principal to deliver them to the girls right before they are to leave, telling them that Santa just drop them off and they needed to meet us in the office.
So what do you think? Do you think this is a good idea? Or does someone have a better idea?