To want my DD to be able to open her presents on Xmas morning.

[fifitot]

For the first time this year me, DH and the children, a baby and a 4 year old are spending xmas with DH's family. We are staying over at his brother and sils and their twin 7 year olds.

I was looking forward to this until I was told that in DH's family they never open xmas presents immediately on waking. In fact DH used to have to wait until after Xmas dinner but apparently now the practice is his brother's kids get up in the morning but the present opening doesn't start until everyone arrives at the house. On this occasion various other bits of DH's family are due to come.

Bear in mind that my DD always gets up at 6 and not everyone will arrive til around 12. That is 6 hours of her hanging around waiting for her xmas presents! I just think it's mean and it will be so disappointing for a child to be full of anticipation for Xmas morning to be told to wait for all the adults to arrive - so we can have a 'nice' sedate present opening ritual.

At my house, the kids always got up first thing and it was merry chaos as presents were opened. The adults did theirs later. Plus DD has for her life so far had her presents first thing.

I really think this is mean and pointless but there is nothing I can do as we are at someone elses house. Have had a huge row with DH about it as think it's cruel. She's only 4 FFS and the belief in Santa will be over all too soon.

What do you think? And what do you think I can do to negate it?

Its definitely happening somewhere for someone this year too

There are some proper pious Christmaszillas on here. Forcing people to wait half the day for their presents, I ask you.

I'm with you op. There is nothing more magical than the excitement children have when 'he's been' and the joy of them opening their presents.

There's some incredible extrapolation going about frenzies of greed etc. It's just nice and fun.

My inlaws do the presents after tea thing too. I put up with it as an adult but my husband is aware that as soon as our son is old enough we'll be waking up at home on Christmas day.

Ha! Didn't read the whole thread :)

I have read the thread and think it is a perfect example of just how nasty MN used to be!

I really can't stand people who are uncomfortable with the consumerism of Christmas trying to control everyone else with false piety. And uber-lols to the suggestion that you are somehow escaping the greed of Christmas by leaving the present opening until later in the day!

As an adult I would be quite peeved at someone suggesting this to me, and I do think its odd to not be able to let children go a bit on one day of the year.

Plus people arguing against the OP seem to think that children who don't have to wait until after the meal (by which time the family is going to be knackered (and drunk!) surely?) are coming down at 4.30am and ripping everything open.

Surely most people who open them in the morning are actually opening them mid to late morning after breakfast or church anyway? Hardly a frenzy of wanton self-control.

Anyway, who wants present opening cutting into Dr Who watching time?! That is cruel and unusual punishment.

It doesn't matter how everyone else did it as a child, she is your child and your choice when she opens her presents. If you're not happy with her opening them until lunchtime then speak to your i laws.

We open our gifts first thing, it's part of the excitement waking up early and spending the morning opening gifts while lunch cooks. I don't think people who wait a few hours longer appreciate their gifts more than those that open them first thing...what a strange thing to say

Oh bloody hell, that will teach me to read the whole thread! Wonder what the OP did in the end?

Yy ethelb

Can't she open her things from Santa when she wakes up and then she gets the rest of her presents later? We usually open ours late morning with a glass of bucks fizz/prosecco, but I'd never expect my child to wait until then to open their stocking.

I expect the OP's dd is now in therapy, trying to deal with the awful effects of the cruelty inflicted upon her at Christmas, four years ago.

My family have always done stocking first thing in the morning then tree presents after the post xmas dinner clean up. When I was little I was able to chose some of those presents to open then and there, and then I'd have the rest to open on boxing day (and the day after if there were lots of presents) but by the time I was in my teens I opened them all on xmas day afternoon.

I was shocked and horrified the first time I went to DH's parents, as they don't have stockings, (though I had gone equipped with a stocking from my parents) but open everything after breakfast! I feel the whole build up is lost by opening the presents in the morning :S

We're with PiL's this year, so DD(2) will get her stocking as soon as she wakes up (because it will have her xmas day outfit in and clearly she needs to be in that when people take pictures of her opening presents), then she will get presents from DH's parents and probably us in the morning and she will get the presents from my family that we happen to have with us after lunch to space it out a bit as she won't appreciate all the boxes that her presents come in everything if she opens them all at once. There will still be presents to come from some of my family, so she will probably get those as they arrive in the days to follow.

tricky Brandy butter and SPROUTS?!?!?!?!?

also, jill shame on you for resurrecting a four year old thread, but it's nice to see the different ways people do xmas.

With any luck, if this thread carries on for much longer, the OP's dd will be old enough to post her own reply. Providing she's recovered from the present opening trauma that marred Christmas four years ago.

What's this Santa present business? That's just weird to me.

whoops! sorry jill for some reason it only have me the last two pages when I clicked on the post before!

It wasn't Jill it was me

I blame MN because this blasted new interface didn't let me find the Christmas topic so I had to do a search, and forgot that I might be reading old threads, so yeah, I blame MNHQ.

My family did open everything first thing. DH's everything after lunch. We have compromised (because we spend some christmasses at home, some at PILs and some at my parents and wanted to have something which basically fitted in wherever we are).
We do a [large] stocking from FC which is opened first thing and then presents from us (including main) to be opened after lunch along with presents from others.

it actually works extremely well and has done since they were little. They get an ok haul first thing which they appreciate more than if they had everything at once and they positively enjoy the deferred gratification for the rest.
Having argued initially for the first thing approach, I am now strongly of the view that this way is best, including from the children's perspective!

I will ask my DC if they would prefer to be able to open everything first thing and let you know what they say.

That's okay TheBoo , I accept your apology.

I didn't resurrect it, as you know, but I was doing my best to point out that it was a four year old thread, so while it was a good discussion, there wasn't much point in people addressing the OP who probably has solved the issue...four years on.

This thread is an education. For the people who agree with making the child sit around for hours looking at presents, don't ever go to an Irish house on Christmas morning.

Up out of bed at some unholy hour, race to the tree to see what Santa has left, open presents, play with presents. No Enid Blyton hours of endless savouring of opening a gift at a time by each person while drinking lashings and lashings of ginger beer. Stockings are only a very recent thing here and really an add on to what the main man himself has left.

It all looks and sounds so controlling to eeeeeeek the presents out over hours of timed enjoyment.

We always had stockings and a biggish present to open first thing then had to wait until after Xmas lunch to open the rest.

I certainly think compromise is what it's all about on Christmas and stockings and perhaps a little activity present for all the kids would be reasonable. Is bil usually terribly unreasonable?

My mum got it into her head one year that we would wait until 11.00am, after breakfast to open our presents.

Lets just say she never tried it again.

FFS

Zombie

Z

Don't think it's wildly right or wrong either way, but I agree with those who say let her have some present, or the stocking presents, first thing and then wait for the rest. It is not really a big deal either way, except that I think the Christmas morning excitement is really a big part of it for kids (so in other words yes, she should be opening some presents).

Does remind me for some reason of my Jewish SIL who had never celebrated Christmas before being surprised that children were allowed to just munch on chocolates before lunch on Christmas day. The excitement of early morning opening is just one of those illogical things that are part of Christmas, but don't really make sense.

Ooops RTFT!

Zucker ha ha, yeah that's our house Christmas morning.