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?

Not joyless at all jumpty? Why would it be joyless? There are still presents - just spread throughout the day. Stockings from JC first thing in bed, family presents after lunch and a tree present just before bedtime.

Ormirian - who's JC? Spreading out is fine but leaving the gifts from Santa under the tree unopened for hours with no presents until afternoon (per the OP) seems like torture to me.

Oh bless. My dad could never wait - when we were slovenly teenagers lolling around in bed with hangovers he would get us up and make us all open our presents in our PJs. :o

This may have been suggested already, but I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if I am repeating.

As children in our family, we opened everything asap and that was that.

With our children we give a stocking which they open in bed with us and they have 'Father Christmas' presents downstairs. They can open those, but the rest from family etc and a present from us (we don't want them to grow up thinking we never got them presents at Christmas ) are opened after dinner, and when everything is tidied up. The children love it, they get to pass presents to other family members and enjoy seeing them open gifts. In fact sometimes we even save a few for the next day if we are with in laws and there are just too many to be opened and appreciated.

FC not JC! Sadly for MIL JC gets no look in in our house

I know I am late to this thread but I am going to stick my oar in anyway

In our house it is stockings in the morning then out to sort the animals (walk dogs, clean out and feed horse and prep for the evening stables etc) then back in to prep lunch (everyone helps, little ones set the table, big ones do veg) then we do gifts.

We do have the tingly anticipation thing and we have lots of family time where we are working together and sharing the build up IYSWIM. So far there have never been any complaints other than the usual "can't we have just one?" with a cheeky glint in the eyes!

Anyway, my point is that it is perfectly possible to do gifts later without being pompus or pious or cruel, it is just a different way about things. The most important thing is that it is a family day to be enjoyed so you need to make the morning/waiting bit enjoyable for dd. Some kind of special craft activity as suggested, pin the antlers on the reindeer, walk around the local area or anything else you can dream up that everyone can share (even if it is just your little family group if the others are not up for it) will do. Dd will not have any preconceptions to undo so at least it is now and not when she is 7 or 8yo!

Having said all of that having my christmas day dictated to me would get up my nose as well

I first heard of 'late' present opening from a former work colleague. Her ILs didn't let her young children open any presents until the evening. I was amazed.

I am all for spreading presents. My children have a stocking first thing which they either open in their own bedrooms or on our bed (at a reasonable hour). Then we all get up, washed and dressed and go downstairs to open a few presents. We have breakfast and then more presents. We can all then play with our gifts, especialy the children's inbetween phoning family for Christmas tidings and making lunch.

Christmas is further extended as we visit family over next few days and exchange more presents.

YANBU

I think there's a lot of people defending their own traditions and forgetting that other people have grown up doing it the other way going on here.

So while it's not totally bizarre to have late present giving, it'd be nice if there could be some sort of compromise so that your daughter could have something early.

From my own experience/biased viewpoint, I grew up opening presents as soon as the whole family was downstairs and it would seem odd to me to wait to open prezzies from Father Christmas. I'd have been happy to wait to open presents from relatives though.

My son is only a few months old so I haven't experienced this dilemma yet - it won't really matter to him when we open the presents this year! But if he was older and we were in the same situation I think I'd be going down the stocking route too. Hopefully there can be a compromise so all the kids get a morning gift that will keep them entertained until later on.

Father Christmas just delivered our presents as kids, like a special xmas day postman. He didn't actually buy/ make us any. They all had tags on them.
We never really queried why the various relatives didn't just post them to our parents to get there a few days before.
We never saw any presents until xmas morning when they all appeared in sacks and stockings.
I can't imagine coming down at 7ish to find the sitting room full of presents and then having to hang around before opening them.
Our parents would often have people round late morning for predinner drinks and nibbles though so wanted everything cleared up by then. We did our walk after lunch.

I guess everybody has been brought up differently on how christmas day should go. We always open ours in the morning. Could you give her a couple of presents xmas eve ? She can then play with them xmas day. Or a good idea is to get up early xmas day before evryone else is up and give her a few then. I think you should save a few till the afternoon so she can open some with evryone else. If you want to go with the stocking idea then I would buy nephews a stocking with gifts in to and if your daughter does show them her gifts then give them their stockings, say santa left these for u too , that way noone is left out and then open the rest later with everyone else .

This thread makes me glad we've agreed to have Xmas day alone (just us and the DCs) - my parents and nan will come up boxing day (we are saving the turkey etc for then) and DH's older DCs will stay at some other point during the holidays (they are always with their mum on 25th)

And it means the presents are very spread out.

Hmmm yeah not cruel at all. This is the way everyone in Scandinavia does it. And they do christmas very well. When I was a child it was fabulously exciting to wait allllll day in anticipation and finally get to open my presents after dinner.

What you mean is it feels wrong to you because it's not the way Christmas was for you. But as others have said, she's only four. She's hardly going to remember what Christmas is supposed to be like. If you feel she ought to have something to open first thing, just make her up a little stocking.

She's 8 now - they could have started a whole new tradition since this thread was started...

Ahaha my first zombie comment

Is everyone else getting this new format or is it just on iPads? I don't like it at all, and it didn't give me a zombie warning!!

That's what I get for forgetting that I used the search feature to find 'christmas' rather than looking at the Christmas topic... Been a looong day!

YANBU. I would hate to have to do this. In our house FC brings everything as he did when I was a child. We would scramble downstairs and have a big opening session. We now do this with our children. Good luck. Bet you stay at home next year! Ps I don't think. 4 yr old needs to be taught restraint on Christmas day. They are only little once.

Make sure her stocking is exciting. We don't open presents 'til after dinner too. The stocking has Father Christmas' presents and the family presents are under the tree. Santa doesn't disappoint :)

How did it go op , did dd survive four years on?

Me too HolgerDanske :)

OMG what a load of dick had comments on here.

OP YANBU.

I wouldn't go - it sounds shit!

Doh!

Definitely with the inlaws on this one. Stretches out the fun of the day to stagger presents. Hate the ripping frenzy yeuch.

I love having an avalanche of presents first thing in the morning. Santa brings them overnight. When you see them, they're yours. If they're from Santa, why should grown ups stop you opening them? They don't have anything to do with it. You hang your stocking up. You go to sleep. Santa comes. You open your presents.
More importantly, I as an adult get to dictate the traditions my children follow at Christmas.

At our house, dcs open stockings first thing. Then after breakfast, any presents from people they won't see that day (this year, the inlaws). Then when we a&e all assembled, either at parents on here, we open the presents we are giving each other.