to make my daughter wait until her birthday to open her presents ...

[MMQC]

I have two children, their birthdays are three weeks apart so they have a joint party. Which also means my daughter (who is now approaching five) gets a whole bunch of presents about ten days before her birthday. My son (now 7) gets the presents about ten days after his.

Am I being unreasonable in making her wait until her birthday before she can open her presents? Yes, she's only five, yes, she's excited, but it's the principle, right?

[awaits flaming]

There's nothing wrong with shared parties, they take a lot of organising, and it can be soul destroying having to do it twice in a couple of weeks (I love the post party "aaah it's all over" feeling). It does kind of suck the fun out of it though if they can't open the presents!