so....i don't know how to post an image...

Images can only go in comments, is all (rather than in the FPP). I'm sure one of our fearless mods will fix soon, if you ask nicely.

Also, we use html coding here in comments, not the BBS-style [IMG] tag. I usually just use the Image button at the bottom of the page. Like this:
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When I was a kid, my father had this anthropomorphic stuffed lizard that was tie-died with hippie hair and beard, big rose-colored glasses, and a string of beads with a peace sign. My dad liked to hide the toy so that it would jump or fall out at us when we opened a door or a drawer.

How fun! We didn't do it in my family, but an office I worked in once was pretty practical jokey. I hid my boss' coffee cup right next to another one just like it on a shelf in plain view in his office. Took him a good 2 months to find it.

The image be:

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My family has a similar thing with a large, ugly ceramic peacock that belonged to my grandmother. Except it's usually foisted upon someone without their knowledge -- hidden in the back seat of the car as they drive away, for example.

Thanks muddpuppie. Y'all are nice here.

My family had the reverse:

We had Dog the Dog, a bath puppet that, through the years, developed quite an attitude, including only using a made-up name for my daughter. I had to keep Dog the Dog hidden, for his own safety, often in Mexico (I would solicit both friends and strangers to take him on trips and then send my daughter pictures.)

He's in hiding to this day, and if my daughter or her friends ever find him, they will julienne him.

chew-I never thought to start it at work. We are an office known for being merciless with each other, 'dogpile' being our favorite verbal game. Now I'll have to keep my eyes open for a really hideous plastic creature.
danf- I love it!

We have one we do at Christmas time with a Nativity scene. I do it now at my own house (it's a little harder with not as many people). We set up the little barn part, but put the 3 Wise Men (referred to as 'wise guys') in a far-off room or the front hall. They make their way gradually toward the manger scene until they 'arrive' for Epiphany. They just inch their way along, bit by bit, over books and under tables, etc. The key is that no one can see them move. So it's all very mysterious, you know, how it happens.

I love these stories!

toastedbeagle - the one rule we had in that office was never confess. :D

I think I may have mentioned before that my BIL and one of his buddies from grad school exchanged a Zero candy bar in all kinds of disguised packages for years. Last time my BIL received it was in a baby bottle congratulating him on his newborn daughter. Another time he sent it back in a very outdated & nerdy physics book that had a bunch of interior pages cut out of it so the candy bar could fit stealthily.

My daughter screamed when she opened the oatmeal box and the frog SPROINGED out. Because he's plastic we always surprise guests by hiding him in their shower. He has an open mouth and will scare the crap out of you if you're just peeling your eyelids apart in the morning. We try to let him rest a bit between surprises, and let everyone sort of forget about him, and then one day you open your glovebox and whoosh, out leaps a frog into your lap.

At work, I've used the Annoy-A-Tron from thinkgeek, which truly lives up to it's name. It has been banned after overuse (not by me).

What I did with my kids was not to hide a toy but to hide myself then jump out and scare them when they were least expecting it. Great fun (for me).

We had The Finger:

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It was a life-sized plaster cast of a hand making the two-fingered peace sign. My very creative father sawed one of the fingers off, though. We gave it as a gift, within the family, at various auspicious occasions, weddings, baby showers, stuff like that.

It became part of the tradition to creatively decorate or package it. They painted it pink for my daughter's birth, for instance. My dad's 50th birthday party was a big affair, with lots of church friends over. Dad was sitting in the middle of the crowd opening presents. He came to mine, and opened it with a flourish. Inside was a The Finger, painted metallic gold, with a little cross-stiched pillow reading "Fuck Fifty."

It's now resting in peace with Dad in the Amity Presbyterian Church cemetary in Charlotte, NC. Just seemd to be the right thing to do, you know, to give Dad The Finger one last time.

mrmoonpie, you win.

Not quite the same sort of thing, but I have a plastic scorpion in my work bag. Been moving that scorpion around from bag to bag for so long I can't remember where it came from.

Similarly, I have a tiny polar bear in the freezer.