Unwrap presents during or after?

[leroymerlin]

My dd is turning 3 tomorrow and having a birthday party with 6 friends coming over. We have only been to two parties recently and both had a table for the presents which were then opened afterwards.

I remember opening my presents at my parties when I was little (so presumably I could thank the person who had brought it) but was wondering if there was a reason, that has passed me by in the last thirty years, as to why people don't do this now?

Would it be a faux pas if my dd opened her presents at her party?

If there are only a handful of guests i let my dc open the pressies, if there are 20 of them in a softplay hell place i wait till we get home :)

i cannot think how i would have stopped my dd opening her gifts at her parties!

As it's six guests, I would go for it and let her open them. The only difficulty is, ime getting them off them before they get marmalised!

Perhaps open them in one room, and pop them away, till 'later'? I hate going to parties where i don't get the reaction of the child on opening dd's gift to them.

yes the amount of guests matters. it would be carnage at soft play.

The other things that would put me off is if DD's reaction to the present was less than polite e.g. 'I've already got that one'. Plus if there's loads of kids they get bored waiting for birthday child to open stuff and also some people might be embarrassed if their gift looked smaller or less somehow if someone else arrives with a super-dooper all singing, all dancing gift.

I'd never, ever allow presents to be opened at a party, esp. one for a younger child, because of what PP said about child's reaction to presents. Have a small relative who was humiliated at a party when a gift recipient was unimpressed... that child might have been habitually rude, but even well behaved children can be unpredictable.

I've always done opening afterwards - there is the chance two guests will have brought the same present which could be tricky. And it is also quite nice after the party to look at presents calmly.