5. Careful Strategic Questions
One has to be very crafty in order to trick your parents into telling you what you are getting for Christmas. At a very young age, you start with the phrase "What have I got for Christmas?" and unfortunately that will only get you so far. As time moves on, the desire for children and teenagers to outsmart their parents is best displayed through tricking them with words alone. Depending on the intelligence quota of your parents, there are a multitude of phrases to employ to get the answers you want. If you have a sibling, you can trick your parents into suggesting they already know what they have, or possibly even play your parents against each other, by telling mom that dad told you what you got for Christmas, leading to her inadvertently letting slip the nature of your present. Another tactic is to let slip something you "really wanted" for Christmas close to the actual day, which will put certain parents into a panic, and in that panic they reveal all, and beg your forgiveness. Personally, I would rather wait to find out the presents on the day then be a kid that commands that much sway over their parents. Good thing my dad was able to write this slide for me.