What is your present wrapping system?

[ernjas]

Something I'm curious about.

Do you hide the presents in a family members household and wrap them there before bringing them home?
Do you hide them in your house and wrap them before Christmas? Or do you wrap them on Christmas Eve after the children go to bed?

My mum always just hid the presents in our (small) house and wrapped them on Christmas Eve and I never suspected anything, found my presents, heard the wrapping and believed in FC until I was almost 12

We have deep shelves in our room that are full of all sorts of random crap all year, so the kids don't notice random amazon boxes and what have you.

I'm mostly not wrapping this year. I don't wrap the stocking stuff anyway, so I'll just leave that ready in two piles and then chuck the stuff in on the night. Their Santa presents have been in sacks under the tree for the last couple of years and this year they're having sacks from us too (it sounds like tonnes, but it's not, the sacks aren't that big!). Pressies for family who'll be here on the day will be in sacks as well. Aside from that, it's just a couple of nieces and nephews; they'll be wrapped once we buy them. Oh, and DH gets a stocking.

I do arrange the kids' stuff in order of interestingness, yes.

I wrap as soon as I buy them the it doesn't matter if they're found. In our house we say that Santa brings the stockings not the main gifts so there's no big deal on hiding them all.

Stocking stuff I get a couple of days before Christmas but never wrap it, just leave the bag in the boot of my car and get it once DD is asleep.

I used to be a real stickler for proper wrapping- tissue, wrapping paper, no visible sellotape, ribbons, bows...normally used to do a big session a few days before Xmas.

Got a good deal on gift bags this year though (multipacks, on 3 for 2 deal plus 25% off total and free postage) from WH Smith of all places. Have popped presents in bags pretty much as I bought them.

Thank god I did that. We had a sudden death in the family at the beginning of the month and 1) we’re behind on everything and really sleep deprived 2) spending a whole evening wrangling ribbons seems really beside the point now.

My children are adults so no need for hiding presents anymore.
I wrap each persons in different paper and ribbon.
I wrap as I buy.
They are currently under the tree.

We hide in the wardrobe and then usually do it the nights running up to christmas, but this year i have started early.
I am doing a massive 3 hour stint today which will get the childrens done and then i will only have a few small bits to wrap for friends sat (before i see them on Sunday).
Dp doesnt get involved in the wrapping!

Mine are all wrapped. F.C. presents in different paper, hidden in the loft. Presents for the kids from us are wrapped and in the boot of the car - need to find somewhere else! The rest are under the tree.

I wrap up presents as I get them in dribs and drabs. Usually set up on the dining table when everyone is out and watch something Christmassy on my I pad. Then o hide them away in a cupboard.

One year when the DDs were small I left it all till Christmas Eve and we were still at it at 1am!

Never again!

Since a tip I read, possibly on MN, most presents are hidden in plain sight - in a locked suitcase. I used to save the wrapping and have a big wrapping evening when DH was out close to Christmas. I have learned that gets old pretty quick and better to do it a bit at a time so I can stop before I get fed up and come back to it another time.

The cat loves it when we start wrapping. She is about 20 years old and mostly dozes all day. Just wait till you start wrapping though. She appears from nowhere and just comes alive like a scene from Cocoon. First she'll casually come and lie on the paper you've rolled out, then she'll act like there's a mouse under the paper, frenzied scrabbling, ripping the paper up like a cat possessed. She goes mental. You can either start again on the ironing board (out of reach and freaks her out anyway) or just give up and pack it all away for the night.

When mine were young, I utilised all the empty suitcases in wardrobes and creatively pushed plastic shopping bags of gifts behind towels and sheets . They never guessed and it wasn't until last year (they are 22, 20 and 18 now) that they told me they assumed I kept everything at my parents house until Christmas Eve!

My mum used to do the hide in plain sight thing. I never let on I always found them, so she didn’t change her gambit.

I tick the box on the website that says “gift wrap this item”

Best Invention Ever!

Hide them everywhere, lose them, get drunk on Christmas Eve and wrap them. Every year.

I like to see what the children have and how comparable it is so I wrap a few days before Christmas. Last year I hid it all on top of our very tall ikea wardrobes but it was a faff to get them down. This year they are just thrown in the guest room and I have locked the door, my children are too young and naive to guess what is going on.

For presents we are giving to other people I wrap and out under the tree from about nowish so that the tree looks festive.

DH and I have a long afternoon of wrapping, having got the presents out from their secret place (under bottom drawer in chest of drawers - there's a big space there.) We have the Christmas playlist on, and see if we can finish the task before we get to the end of it. My favourite part is DH wrapping my presents in front of me, while I'm blindfolded. Even if I can't see, I love hearing him wrapping my goodies! A silly ritual which I look forward to every year.

I'm with Smithy on this one, use aluminium foil just scrunch and done not really but tempted

I've been wrapping at work for the last 2 years. It's great, get everything delivered there and wrap and store behind my desk. I'm going to nip in on Xmas Eve and pick everything up. No risk of the little ones finding stuff (small house).

November/December buy presents and drop them off/have them delivered at nans house. Wrap them as and when I can and hide on the top shelf of the huge cupboard.

Christmas Eve - put the kids to bed, devour the rum, Lindt balls and meat/cheese selection they leave out for Santa and the reindeer. I then sneak out to family's house and get drunk and then get a taxi home with hopefully all the presents, and then put them all under the tree while trying not to wake the kids in my drunken merry state. I love it

I hide everything in the towel cupboard, which is in our room. I wrap before Christmas & put it all under the tree. Other then stocking presents, obviously. Santa wraps those before leaving them in the stockings I wish he'd never bloody started with that!

Depending on size we hide them at home and I'm not allowed to wrap because apparently it's not neat enough......it obviously doesn't get ripped off and binned straight away on Xmas morning 🙄🙄

For the kids, they each have a large decorative gift bag and I mainly use gift bags for everyone else. We only wrap for a couple friends and few little ones who love wrapping paper and unwrapping things.

The presents are currently in a big box in my room so if they went digging they might find it (as my brother and I once did) but they're currently at an age where they don't really come into our room without asking or a reason. When they were younger I put more into keeping them well hidden. Up to a week prior, my spouse and I will pull out everything and the gift bags and sort them all out.

I do try to arrange the gifts but some of my kids like to poke and jiggle to guess before opening and dig around for things when really excited so I don't put too much into that. Big sized items really need to go in the bottom whether they're the number one item on their wishlists or not unless they're really soft and light which can then be really funny to look like it's full of just that.

This has gotten a bit more awkward as they've gotten older - it seems the bigger they are, the smaller the gifts (top of my 14 years old's wish list is a very particular coat, leather fingerless gloves, and game stuff that takes up pretty much no space). I've thought of getting smaller gift bags with the same patterns on them for a few years but they love their big gift bags they've had for years even when I think it's weird and awkward when we've filled them but they still look mostly empty.

System?! Presents are stacked in brown boxes in our bedroom - and resembles a warehouse on my side - until wrapping. I wrap when the children are at school. F.C. presents are wrapped and in one big brown box which is taped shut. Different paper main presents -one each- are in another pile. I have gift bags with h’s family new year gifts and a large bag for life with my family presents - we hire a house for the time so they go under the trees when we get there.