Must. Stay. AWAKE!

When I was about 4 or 5 my Dad was working night shifts and his shift finished early Christmas morning. When he got home he put Santa's sack full of presents at the end of my bed and went to bed. Poor sod was woken about 30 minutes later with me screaming "HE'S BEEN!!! HE'S BEEN!!!"

Previous poster just reminded me. I can remember being about 10/11 and lying bed stressing because I didn't know if Santa was real or not. So I was pretending to be asleep to catch my parents out.

I was thinking if I didn't catch them out then I'd never know, and then when I had my own children I wouldn't know whether to get presents for them or not. I was imagining my future kids coming down to no presents because I still believed!

Could you imagine the horror of falling asleep and being woken by the children in the morning?

i bet that’s happened to a few unlucky sods over the years.

Also trying to stay awake as long as possible, though DS is fast asleep I worry he’ll be up for a wee and stocking is on landing. Set an alarm for 1am incase I do zonk out, figured I’d be able to get back to sleep after rather than chance doing it before he wakes.
Just had to send DH back downstairs to eat some gingerbread, drink the milk and bite the carrot as we’d forgotten.

At 10 it’s not a disaster if you’re spotted, in fact I wonder if he’s hoping to spot you to confirm his suspicions. If you’re rumbled just say “ho Ho Ho” and style it out.

I thought DD9 was sleeping, snuck in to check and she's WIDE awake 😅
I can't wait to get to bed and am losing the will.

Glad it's not just me. So tired , also set multiple alarms

Just done it.

My ten year old was actually desperate to go to sleep, but the 4 year old put up a fantastic effort and didn’t conk out until 10:15.

I took them out earlier and dh moved eveything from under our bed to the understairs cupboard to make it easier for us.

Not my story but I have a much younger sister and when I was home from uni for Xmas she once woke up as my mum was putting out presents and my dad was having a very noisy Xmas shit so he had to pretend to be Santa and tell her he had diarrhoea from too many mince pies and to go back to bed or he wouldn't be able to leave her presents. He then had to stay in a freezing cold bathroom for an hour til she went back to sleep

As a new mum I said to DH that we would be setting the standards out from the start-and FC leaves presents in the living room from the start.
I would have liked in the shed but I did compromise 🤣🤣🤣

I’m sat here scrolling to try to stay awake 😭😭😭😭😭KEEP EYES OPEN

I'm just eating my second mince pie before I spring into action. This year they wanted to put one out each 🙄
(Yes, I know I don't have to eat them, but they are the brandy buttercream topped ones)

I am, and just mentioned to DH that I have at least 10 mins of stuff to finish before bed and he looked at me completely blankly
I'm glad he still believes in Xmas magic 🙄

Ha! This is my tradition which drives my partner potty. He would have them under the tree. The worse thing is I get super giggly when I am being sneaky (am also rubbish at hide and seek 😂) So we had to sneak in to get the stocking, fill them and put them back all while I’m trying to stop myself from giggling/bursting out laughing. We did manage it though!
they are teens now so know it’s us but Santa is still leaving the stocking by the end of the bed (although my daughter agreed they could be left outside the door as she’ll be up til god knows when….

good luck!

Mine were finally asleep but then dd woke up and her tooth fell out. So now I have to wait for her to get back to sleep, and then be the Tooth Fairy AND Father Christmas......!

Really old story now but one year I stayed at my aunt and uncle's, with my parents but I was on the sofabed in living room. I was only small and it wasn't actually Christmas eve, but was woken by them at some point in the night - they asked me had I heard the reindeer clattering over the roof doing a practice run for Christmas, took me to look out of the window, and I totally believed them. Next morning there was a note at the end of my bed from Santa and Rudolph to say sorry for waking the whole house up on their test run but now he knew where to drop my stocking... In my aunt's writing which I didn't clock because I was only about six. I still have the note somewhere!

Was ridiculously excited to tell my parents when they woke up! My family is enormous so where we all stayed changed every year but this is one of my favourite Christmas memories and maybe you could use a similar story if you do wake your son while doing stockings?

Edit for typos

We always have a busy couple of days and late nights on the 22nd and 23rd due to other family events - it's hectic but it means we never have any issues on Christmas eve. Both kids (6 and 8) were fast asleep by 8.30pm and we were finished wrapping and stockings stuffed by 9.45.

Sat with the dregs of last year's port and eating a well deserved mince pie and a few carrot chunks now.