Anyone forgot to 'do' Xmas for their dc ?

[hollywoodhills]

Quite random, but it has me worried and I've had nightmares about it

I'm concerned that I will mess up the magic of Xmas morning.

Last year Santa forgot to take the card that dd had made for him. Dd was a bit confused about that.

Then dd had a present which was actually for ds.

Im worried about staying awake to sort it all. My dc will not sleep on Xmas eve if they hear me walking about.

Last year was horrendous and I went to bed at 2am in the end.

The thought of the stockings are giving me a headache as any noise and they will be wide awake.

This is all based on the last 2 years on Xmas eve. I try to tire them out but the excitement just takes over and my eldest will not sleep until I am in bed and all is quiet in the house.

Has anyone fell asleep on Xmas eve and Santa has forgot to leave the presents?

Reading these I'm realising that my mum's operation was pretty slick! We were not allowed in my parents' bedroom, and their room had an ensuite with a shower which was never used, and she used to hide the presents there.

When I was a teen I sang in a church choir, so I remember being told that I wasn't allowed to go in the living room when I got back from midnight mass - I had to go directly upstairs!

Father christmas always used different paper from mum as well, and only occasionally was there a strange gift where she said "oh father christmas must have put that one inthe wrong stocking, it's obviously meant for DSis..."

I eventually figured it out when I saw a sparkly nail varnish in a shop, and asked my mum for it. She said no, but obviously bought it, thinking I'd forget. Several months later it turned up in my stocking!

No, I absolutely don't stress about it. Gifts are usually ordered from Amazon with about 10 days to go, we get lots of nice food and wine and we get on with it.

Last year, the stockings all fell down with a thud in the middle of the night and pulled all the decorations off the fireplace. But it was fine. Dd who is 7 and just on the cusp of maybe questioning the Santa thing was so excited because it meant Santa was really there and knocked everything off going back up through the woodburner!

One of my favourite Christmas memories is from ehen Dd was nearly 2. She didn't believe in sleep. So appeared in the living room at 10pm. And hot stuck in with 'helping' DH build a toy kitchen and arranging of presents.

And still seemed shocked te next morning at the sight of stiff around the tree.

We leave stockings outside bedroom doors. I have a carrier bahper person, all wrapped I same paper, so fillimg is quick.

In our household it is perfectly normal to get xmas presents in March. Or any other months when we actually find them. It's a running joke.
I refused to have any religious fluff around xmas so when DS was small it was the xmas elves that brought the presents. Thankfully elves/gnomes are forgetful, prank-y and generally like fun, so it was easy to explain why there was an extra present a few weeks later :)

I am not willing to stress on anything as small as xmas. Or stress threshold is basically: Will they have a lifelong scar (from whatever) that they will need years of therapy for? Yes - ok, find a solution. No - just roll with it. :)

Tbf I actually tried to create the best/perfect xmas once when DS was about 4 yrs old. Outcome: when H took the duck out of the over he managed to land it all on the floor. Grease (lovely juice) was oozing into every crack of the parquette. And it was flaming hot, so burnt myself trying to clean up. Kid helped (later, when a bit cooler) but slipped and grabbed the xmas tree which spectacularly fell on him and buried him.
My mum screamed for our kid, husband was furious with himself and couldn't let go of his rage and my dad was just being his totally hysteric unuseful self.
My son saved the day by yelling from under the tree: I'm a porcupine!!
(He kind of curled up and the presents actually saved him from being hit)
Ended up sending H to take a hike in the freezing cold to cool off, sent parents home (2 min walk) for an hour and playing "porcupine cleans up this shit" with son. 2 hours and a tattered xmas tree later we had frozen pizza, greasy presents (gotta love open plan kitchens ...) and had a wonderful time. That was the point when I gave up on any occasion being perfect or even just great. It'll be what it'll be.

(and I was cleaning duck grease for days.)

I agree with not making it complicated, but different families do it different ways. I don't know a single family where it is stockings only from Santa and the parents give separate presents.
Neither DH or I ever had anything other than stockings from Father Christmas and everything else from whoever it was from.

I only learnt on MN that there are any families where everything comes from FC, I'd never heard of that.

Definitely no stress anyway. Presents are put under the tree whenever they are bought and wrapped or arrive in the post from relatives. No hiding stuff till 2am on Xmas Eve. Just stockings to fill, which are left downstairs and a carrot to be bitten in to and left alongside an empty glass of whiskey.

FC is the delivery man in our house. As it was when I was a child. Parents send money to FC. FC chooses some presents, parents choose some and then send them to FC. And then FC delivers them all. Same for ones from family (which you then write a thank you letter for).

We take DS to choose some presents to send to FC for other children who have parents who may not be able to send any money. We take them to church and the FC comes and collects them from there.

Stockings on bedroom door.

Mine are teenagers now but we still do stockings.

Father Christmas only ever brings stockingy stuff - new pants, hair bands, sweets, the odd game, etc, everything else is from us/grandparents/whoever and go straight under the tree when wrapped.

Stocking stuff I’d wrap in different paper for each child, store in the garage then just chuck it in the stockings on Christmas Eve

We use to have stockings downstairs beside the Christmas tree so didn’t have to creep around upstairs

Once, DH and I shared a bottle of Baileys while peeling spuds and veg, ended up 3 sheets to the wind and went to bed completely forgetting to put the stockings out. We both shot bolt upright at 3am, legged it downstairs and sorted it out. We’d both been struggling to sleep as we both had a niggling feeling we’d forgotten something

I was speaking to my mum about this the other day. I never heard her rustling about downstairs even though me DB used to egg each other on all night with excitement and we rarely slept until 1-2am🙈 she said she used to bring us upstairs to read stories and go to bed while my grandad brought round all our presents and stockings (pre wrapped in different paper), he'd sneak in and drop them in the living room. She'd put a film on for us while she went downstairs (neither of us were the type of children to go downstairs after bed though and would shout if we wanted anything) she then set up the presents and head to bed herself about 10pm with our stockings in her room where they stayed until morning where we'd jump in bed with her and open them. A similar thing happened when she met my amazing step dad except either he'd put us and our half siblings to bed while mum did the presents or vice versa. She said she'd always indented to put the stockings in our room when we split but I was terrified of a big man coming into my room when I was a child (and now come to think of it😂) so she put them in her room

All our presents came from Santa too as children. DH was the same. I won't be doing that with DS though as it really hurts my heart that some children won't get the same as DS and other children and think that Santa doesn't like them as much. So he'll get a stocking and 1-2 small presents from Santa. Definitely not everything!

We had one Christmas when we woke up to no presents. Cue monstrous howling from us kids.

Silly Father
Christmas had accidently left them in Mum n Dad's room!

I use to have nightmares too but they are based on nothing really... I start buying at least 4 months in advance, I think its pretty impossible to actually forget (although saying that I would have sworn no parent could forget their childs birthday but DH parents did one year when he was a child - he didnt even tell them until bed time because he just kept assuming they would do something 'later in the day').

our formular is pretty easy:

1. tree gifts are from us and out all december
2. santa leaves gifts unwrapped in the living room so no sneaking around the bedroom or rush wrapping etc... so we just have to put them out which is the most stressful bit but not too bad
3. stockings are hung on the door down stairs and just mainly have sweets in, takes 2 seconds to pour the bags of sweets into them

This thread is a real eye-opener about stress and causes of stress.

Every Christmas when I see these threads I am more and more grateful I'm not Christian and I don't have these things to worry about

What's religion got to do with it? I'm not christian, we still do xmas. As do lots of my friends with other religions.

OP, why so dramatic about it all? You need to chill, big time

"Stockings are hung by the chimney with care"
and each family member's gifts are wrapped in different paper.
We always leave Santa a cup of Mom's favorite cinnamon cocoa and her special cookies because they are his favorites too!
To keep the children from getting up before dawn, Santa leaves a book on the foot of their beds. If they wake up earlier than 7am they can read their new book.

@Callcat I'm going with that aswell!

Not stocking related but a cousins workmate went out after he broke up from work on the 23rd, got home drunk and shouted 'it's christmasssss!!' Then gave both the children their presents! The mum was furious! I always wonder if she had to go panic buy a few bits on Xmas eve!

@Pascha

We manage stockings by getting them to hang it on the doorknob, then we have two identical stockings each, one empty, one full, and we just switch at the door.

The trouble generally is getting the buggers to go to sleep in the first place .

I only learnt that my Dm did that with my stocking growing up.

It always confused me because they didn't live together. One with the Christmas stuff and one not. I never quite understood how it kept moving but didn't give it much thought to give it my full attention

I drug my kids with antihistamine on Christmas Eve and then DH and I wrap everything downstairs once they've passed out. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Santa sacks are left under the tree, this year the boys are getting one main gift from Santa (HP LEGO) and other stocking filler stuff and all other gifts are from family.

In years gone by Ive gone all out (even had "Santa" hand deliver the stockings on Xmas morning), but the only bit the kids really remember and love is scattering magic reindeer food, hanging the Santa key and eating Christmas cookies!

We leave stockings on outside knob of closed bedroom door.

I go to bed really early most nights so on Christmas Eve I start getting really grumpy and feeling really ill if I'm up too late, especially when I know I have a busy day ahead of me. Everything is always wrapped, it's just waiting to put it all out when DD is asleep. Sticking is on door handle and presents go downstairs. Sometimes DH and I have gone to bed and set an alarm for about 3am to get up and put stuff out because DD was still wide awake. Other years, I've gone up to bed and DH has done the Santa bit as he's more of a night owl than me. Having presents in garage or car is easier. Although there was a tear I realised there were still a few presents left in the car so I had to sneak out, get them, put them in DD's bedroom and then do a whole Oscar winning performance of "oh look DD, Santa must have left you some more presents in your room as an extra surprise!"

Funny thing is, she's 13 now but we still do it all in secret even though she's well past the whole Santa thing. I still like the magic of her coming down in the morning and seeing the presents that have appeared! DH still bites the carrot, eats the mince pie and drinks the whiskey! I think we'll still be doing it until she leaves home.

For people who say it's October/it's early etc; the fact that I'm sorting it out now is why I have a good chance of relaxing on Christmas Eve and not crying into wrapping paper.

Yep Santa forgot to eat the mince pie and drink his milk 😔 the kids were really devastated

I've name changed as this is quite outing as so many of my friends know this story 😂
Got terribly drunk on Christmas Eve one year. Too drunk to wrap the presents. I placed all the unwrapped presents under the tree and just wrapped the whole tree and presents together 😂😂
Kids loved it but I'm so ashamed. That was 20 years ago and they haven't held it against me 😂😂

@Glenthebattleostrich

Stockings are wrapped and packed by November here. I also have duplicate stockings which makes it easier. Apart from the one year the bloody MIL decided it would be fun to swap stocking with DD. Words were had. You don't mess with the Christmas organising in the ostrich household, it's run with military precision to ensure maximum festive fun!

Love this!!! Reminds me of me. Rules ARE fun. 😂

Not forgotten altogether but lots of things have gone wrong, that we've then had to explain.

Like one year dd1 managed to stay awake all night and we had to move her from room to room while we got the presents out of the loft and then downstairs.

At one point she heard it, and I said we had better keep quiet in case it was Santa

hang stockings in your bedroom not in theirs. have a carrier bag per child with all the stockings stuff in then you can just transfer contents one bag to each stocking when you go to bed. also stops them getting at their stockings at 2am! if they're old enough to tell the time or you have one of those child alarm clocks that wakes up that they understand, have a deadline time at which they can come into your room in the morning to see if there is anything in their stockings. get a big roll of cheap paper per child and wrap all presents in colour coded paper so you don't have to label them.