Why do you please wrapping until Xmas eve?

[Steug]

Genuine question, why do people leave the wrapping literally until Xmas eve? Now I don’t celebrate Xmas but I saw a lady with loads of rolls of wrapping paper today and it got me thinking. When you have a year to get organised why leave wrapping until the night before? Or is that sort of the tradition and the done thing on Xmas eve? Thanks and just to clarify I’m not being ignorant, it’s a genuine question x

It's fun

Because I hide presents as they arrive and if I wrapped and labelled them

1. My DCs would find them easy as the Christmas wrapping paper would identify them and helpfully tell them whose gift it is (Current hiding places pre wrapped are cleverly in plain sight eg folded between blue clothes on 2nd shelf of my wardrobe)

1. If I wrap too early I forget and add more presents, one or two DCs end up getting more than the others !

1. I hate wrapping & need a glass of Baileys with my mum (who visits over Xmas) and her extra set of hands to wrap them

Thanks to all except the cheeky responses x

Sometimes I've been busy doing other things
Sometimes I've been waiting for something to arrive last minute, or to get the little 'top up bits' for a present

Of course, anyone going home with paper from the shops yesterday was probably taking home reduced cost rolls, ready for next year.

We do it last minute for dds presents otherwise we’d forget what we got them

I do my xmas wrapping on xmas day usually. Who can be bothered, truly? No kids though.

I also haven’t written my xmas cards yet

@Guttedbuyer

ADHD …

Also this

It doesn't take me all that long tbh. I wrapped everything last night. Took me an hour or so altogether. Don't see the point in eeking it out really. But I'm probably not the neatest of wrappers! If I was creating works of art, I'd probably need longer

Started years ago from being disorganised and now it’s just tradition to do it all on Xmas eve whilst watching a Christmas film

Presents that need to go in the post get done earlier, but wrapping presents to go under the tree and in the stockings is a nice way to spend Christmas Eve. And yes, with a Christmas film on telly.

My reason is:

Single parent with 3 kids who lives in a small 2 bed house with nowhere to hide presents. So I get everything delivered to my mums, and she drops it over 8pm Christmas Eve. I wrap from 8pm-3am every Christmas Eve usually 😂

Yes I had all year to plan Christmas.

I also had all year to plan days off.

But a project which was highly dependent on other kept missing their deadlines, so I have been delayed on so many things this year.

I wrote all my cards on your last posting date for this country (despite having S good few going overseas). All presents wrapped either last Saturday (before i did a gift exchange with DSiblings on Sunday) or Thursday to do deliveries to extended family locally on Friday. And a final couple today for dd.

I didn't finish work until after 12noon yesterday (supposedly off even though officially would have turned up for social purposes had the office been open but building closes at 12:30 and most have disappeared for final shopping in town well before 12).

When I was married to my ex, had to wait until he got paid before Christmas and his bonus to buy the presents as he was financially abusive.

This was always the day before Christmas Eve so the presents were purchased between that day and Christmas Eve.

Is that ok with you?

I now buy and wrap from Oct/nov on - kids get stockings and money from me so I’ve only the stocking presents to do.

Quite simply the paper rips.

Unless you have ample storage that children can't access, hiding presents becomes a real life game of tetris with presents and ordinary stuff stacked in together in an artful way to thwart curious children. Wrapping paper can't handle that level of handling so wrapping prematurely is just silly. Especially as eco friendly paper is incredibly fragile in my experience

Presents for out of the home are wrapped and placed under the tree but all of the at home presents are safely smuggled out of sight. This might change as the children get older and the element of surprise isn't part of the joy of the day, but for now it's reality

I don't now because life is easier but when our DC were little, Dec was crazy with lots of school and work events to fit in, travelling to see extended family to drop presents off and all the shopping and prep prior to cooking for up to twenty people. One year I drove round for 6 weeks with DC presents in my boot. And yes I was that crazy stressed woman still wrapping at 1 am on Xmas Day. No more.

Now I have older DC, I'm not part of the PTA or a cub leader, I don't have to attend nativity plays and Carol concerts, I don't get involved in fundraising at work and I only had one work do to attend. I also have have fewer older living relatives and my xmas card and present buying lists are shorter.

This year there were 4 of us for lunch. Everything was wrapped in advance and the food shopping done days ago. Not smug, but so thankful.

It's just easier. We haven't got space under the tree so everything stays stashed away till its wrapped, doing it on Christmas Eve means we can take it all downstairs and put out around the hearth and not have to put it all away again and risk tearing the paper. It's a nice way to spend the afternoon.

Because I hadn't got round to it until today about lunchtime. No DCs tho. I had paper but this week has been manic so by the time I had time on Christmas Eve I couldn't be arsed and I just wanted to sit down and have a drink.

Exhaustion, it's the busiest time of year for one of my three businesses, shit executive function which I discovered this year is actually ADHD.

I hate these "genuine question" posts - can you really and truly not imagine that some people don't have exactly the same life as you?!

Because I’ve had covid which meant I didn’t have any childcare so for the last 10 days I was trying to work full time and look after two young children. Also trying to cancel all the various plans we had and make sure we had everything we needed to try and have a decent Christmas at home. Without leaving the house again. Plus DC2 likely has covid and has been quite ill with it and super clingy, and won’t nap unless in the car or out in the pushchair, which obviously hasn’t been an option. So had zero time to myself. Would also usually have grandparents here for Christmas so would get them to take the kids out for a couple of hours in the afternoon on Christmas Eve so we could get stuff sorted. But that wasn’t an option either.

Also prioritised spending time doing nice stuff with the kids, like baking and making Christmas decorations, rather than sticking them in front of the tv for a couple of hours because i felt so shit about ruining their Christmas. Not even a trip to see Santa this year, all the fun stuff was planned for this last week. Just wanted to try and make it as fun for them as possible.

Wrapping presents wasn’t really top of my priority list until last night. Had I have known the shit show that this last two weeks would have been back in say January maybe I would have started stuffing the stockings then. As you said OP I’ve had all year to prepare. Clearly I’m badly organised or lazy. Or maybe both.

I dislike the trend of Christmas starting in September and going on for months. It's driven by companies solely for the purpose of making money and we don't have to buy in to it. Generally, I don't wrap or put up decorations before the 24th Dec. This year because of Covid there was no guarantee of anything going ahead until the last minute, so even less reason to expend time and effort early when plans might change.

I’d love to know how people who do it all in advance do it that way round! Does the paper not rip? Do the kids not find the presents? Where do you hide them? Do you not forget what’s in them? Do you not forget where you’ve hidden stuff? Do DC not see Santa’s wrapping paper in your hall cupboard? Do you not feel like you’re wrapping presents for months on end?

I like the secrecy and magic of kids in bed on Christmas Eve, Santa’s special wrapping paper out (also buy this at the very last minute) Christmas film on, you’re able to see exactly what you’ve got for who, exactly what’s for stockings and what are main presents. It takes an hour or so between me and DH to wrap a few things and I personally quite enjoy myself!

@Theremoresefulday no need to take it out on me, I wasn’t responsible for what happened to you