Christmas at Tapper's House

You know me.
I love to wrap presents.
I love to shop for them.
I hate keeping them.
When I see piles of plush and battery-required toys piled around my home and think of the thousands of times I will traipse them upstairs and put them into the correct containers I give a Scrooge-worthy groan.
This year Santa finally heard my pleas for simplicity and thought of a brilliant, awesome solution.
So how do you convince your children they don't want lots and lots of shiny, noisy, new toys?
You distract them with this:

We don't have a name for it. So far I've heard it called the house, the clubhouse, the fort, the dungeon, the castle and the tower.
It has been Gryffindor's common room, an orphanage, a tree house, a log cabin and a mansion. They've decorated it, lowered buckets from the windows, hung lanterns and left secret messages. I don't think they even noticed that they actually own less toys after Christmas than before. I cleared out every toy and piece of furniture in the toy room to make space for it. No one really noticed.
This is just a universal win/win for everyone in the house.
And speaking of wins, the Artist scored major points by driving eight hours to pick up a Christmas present he knew would dear to my heart. He left at four in the morning last weekend, never giving me a hint why or where he was going. On Christmas morning I woke to find this:

A solid wood, antique card catalog for my kitchen. I can't even describe why it is so magical to me. The idea of how many fingers have fumbled through those drawers, on a search for knowledge or distraction or entertainment. It is the smell of old books and the worn brass of used handles. I almost cried when I saw it. I keep running my hands over it, loving every scratch chip. I walk through my kitchen just to stare.
And what did the Artist get since his girls cleaned up?
A few nice tools.
Oh yeah- and three girls who think that having him around is better than Christmas every day.
I hope your day was merry and bright!