This simple tradition is so easy (and inexpensive) and it makes my kids feel very special.
In our house, when a kid has a birthday, they wake up to a room which has been lovingly “T.P.’d” in colored paper streamers. The night before, after the kiddo falls asleep, my husband and I sneak in and run paper streamers all over the bedroom – from one corner to another, all over the ceiling fan, from the curtains, the bed and any protruding toy on a shelf. We stumble in the dark, say “shhhhhh” way too loudly and make confusing gestures at each other in the dark, trying to convey directions. You would not believe how loud tissue paper is when you unroll it in a quiet room! Despite all that, we’ve never had a kid wake up in the middle of the sneaky decorating and catch us!
The next morning, the kid wakes up to a maze of bright, colorful streamers. In the beginning, there would be a balloon or two as well. Not anymore. We can’t seem remember that part until we’re actually streaming the room and we will NOT drive to a 24 hour store in the middle of the night to buy balloons. We love our kids. But not enough to go out and buy balloons at midnight.
We usually leave the streamers up for a week – sometimes two. Lately, we take down all the streamers on the ceiling fan except for the ones draped over the blades. Then we can turn the fan on low and the streamers will twirl and drive the cats nuts.
Last night, putting my 6 (soon to be 7) year old daughter to bed, I said, “hmmmm. We’re going to have a hard time putting streamers in this room tonight. It’s so messy we can barely walk in here.
“Oh my goodness! I need to get out of this bed and get my hiney cleaning up this room!”
(If I knew that’s all it took to get her to clean her room without nagging, I would definitely have been T.P.ing the room more than once a year!)
That’s a great idea!