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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to wonder exactly when you all wrap gifts?

69 replies

littlemisssarcastic · 19/12/2011 22:40

Ok, DD is in bed, I have some wrapping to do, DD is not well atm, and I don't want to start getting paper and sellotape out if it will wake DD up. There just never seems to be a good time. During the day, DD is always with me, and at night time, I am worried she will wake and come downstairs to find me surrounded by goodies I am wrapping.

So when do you wrap your gifts?

I must admit, I have wrapped all of DD's apart from 2/3, but I did those when she was at nursery.

Do other parents worry like this? Or is it just me?

OP posts:

Kladdkaka · 20/12/2011 01:21

I'm in Sweden where gifts are beautifully wrapped free of charge in all the shops. So no wrapping for me. The hard part is when you get home and have to remember what's inside them so you can label them.

startail · 20/12/2011 01:32

Late at night on our bed. No where else is safe!
The stairs lead down in to the living room so little people have a grandstand view.
I've done a few, but Xmas eve's been known.

Spermysextowel · 20/12/2011 02:28

France also does the free gift-wrapping. All look the same with the curly ribbons. At least the shop sticker on the top means you know where to return it to. We like to keep them guessing with a crumply-wrapped offering!

FreudianSlipper · 20/12/2011 02:39

shall wrap them once he goes to bed on christmas eve and i have had a drink and eaten santa's cake

RainbowFishes · 20/12/2011 06:31

Both DC are heavy sleepers so once out there out. So i wrap in my room when they have gone to bed, just got a few left to do but have been putting it off as all the unwrapped gifts are on the bottom of a pile of wrapped so its finding the energy to empty the cupboard then re fill when wrapped.

Will try to do it tonight after work.

troisgarcons · 20/12/2011 06:33

sigh it;s not the wrapping thats the problem - it's the fact I CBA to go out and get any - left it late this year and I hate shopping anyway.

I suppose I'd better do something constructive today

mumnotmachine · 20/12/2011 07:21

I did DSs 2 weeks ago when my friend took him out for the afternoon.
Im doing DDs today while they in school as I have a day off

Wallace · 20/12/2011 07:27

I managed to wrap one present yesterday, and ds2 unwrapped it when he came home from school

OhThisIsJustGrape · 20/12/2011 07:43

I did all mine one morning whilst eldest 3 DCs were at school/preschool and youngest dc was napping.

I am the least organised person in the world except for when it comes to Christmas wrapping. Oh yes. Each child has their own jumbo roll of cheap thin rubbish wrapping paper so it's colour coded. All presents then go into individual bin bags in the loft ready to be brought out on Christmas eve and stuffed hastily into their pillowcases.

DD1 is a really light sleeper and her room is right next to the living room. 2 years ago she couldn't get to sleep and DH and I waited up until 1am and she still wasn't asleep so we went for a festive shag to bed for a couple of hours and then got up to fill the pillowcases! I solved that the following year by buying a second set of identical pillowcases, one lot already filled, so all we had to do was swap them over

Thankfully, she no longer believes in FC thank god so it'll be a lot easier this year!

Oh and to avoid noisy Sellotape ripping, use those little strips that come in a dispenser which you wear on your hand :)

galletti · 20/12/2011 07:43

Usually arrange for DH to take DD out for a couple of hours the weekend before Christmas, as indeed we did this year. Got it all done whilst they were watching the Chipmunk film.

Groovee · 20/12/2011 07:47

November, when we have our shopping day as the kids are away all day

doublechocchip · 20/12/2011 07:53

I start beginning of december and do it just bits at a time, e.g. do stocking pressies in one session, my family's in another, one dc's tree pressies and so on while grouping them together when finished in labelled bags (Im getting better at being organised). I find if I start it early enough I like doing it and its not a chore, finished on sunday night. I mostly do it of an evening when they're asleep.

RedHelenB · 20/12/2011 08:18

Christmas Eve!!!

FestiveGrump · 20/12/2011 08:28

for kids presents, we're christmas eve here too in the living room with something alcoholic, seems to have become something of a tradition for us now! however 1 year dh spent 2 half hours putting together an elc wooden kitchen to be wrapped!! funnily enough since then nothing christmas eve needs to be built! also good for dh to see exactly what i've we've bought for the kids!

springydaffs · 20/12/2011 09:23

always christmas eve, so they're 'fresh' ! I know that's silly but there are so many that I'd forget what I gave people and it's not the same if you write it down, you still can't quite remember.

One year, father christmas got so tired waiting for dc's to go to sleep that he stomped about on the landing filling noisy sacks at 4am. The awed conversation on christmas morning was that they'd all heard him! Still amazed they didn't have the courage/whatever to have a look. Next year, I made them stockings out of fabric. Not so noisy.

pingu2209 · 20/12/2011 09:58

Having had flu last year, which hit me on 22nd December, I have made sure that not only are all my presents bought, but also wrapped by at least 1 week before Christmas.

Last year I had all the presents but hadn't wrapped any. I was wrapping on Christmas Eve night till the early hours of Christmas Day morning and I was feeling terrible and just wanted to go to bed. Never again will I be in that position!

This year everyone at school was coming down with some horrible virus which seems to last a few weeks. I thought it would be sods law if I didn't wrap them that I would come down with the virus!

TheFidgetySheep · 20/12/2011 10:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MackerelOfFact · 20/12/2011 10:11

I love wrapping so left it all until Christmas Eve last year, as a 'treat'. Ha bloody ha. After about 3 hours, with my back killing me and after the umpteenth time of struggling to find the end of the sellotape or losing the scissors underneath the paper, I just wanted to

Needless to say I have been doing it in short bursts this year, usually once DCs are in bed. I will still have a pile to wrap up on my dad's behalf on Christmas Eve but it shouldn't be such a chore!

MackerelOfFact · 20/12/2011 10:12

I just wanted to give up, that should say.

tyler80 · 20/12/2011 10:16

It's a Christmas eve tradition for us. As a child, wrapping always took place in my parents bedroom. We'd be called in to help wrap presents for brother/sister/grandma etc. Then once done you brought them down to put under the tree where they would be examined admired

We still do similar now

alistron1 · 20/12/2011 10:42

When my kids were little and slept erratically a xmas eve late night sesh with me, DP and plenty of wine was the norm. One year I got my finger trapped (at 2 am on xmas morning) in a plastic sit on dog which we were assembling for DS2. We were minutes away from having to call the fire brigade to free me!!

Nowadays I can lock myself in my room for an afternoon (with some wine!) before xmas and do it then....perversely though I do miss that xmas eve panic wrapping

TheCrunchUnderfoot · 20/12/2011 10:51

Christmas Eve, 3am, after a screechy hunt for the sellotape.

CroissantNeuf · 20/12/2011 10:55

I did all mine on Saturday afternoon whilst my Mum had the DCs.

Otherwise it would be one evening whilst one of us guards the door in case the DCs get up. There's always one of them that seems to be going through a "I can't get to sleep" phase and they are amazingly stealthy at leaving their rooms, negotiating the stairs etc -the first you know is when they appear in the doorway to the living room.

TwelveGaysOfChristmas · 20/12/2011 11:13

All of my wrapping was done by the end of November and I'm GUTTED!

I was so upset that when my Amazon orders turned up (already gift-wrapped) I then wrapped them up too! There's a dual-layer to go through!

Love wrapping. Everyone has their own specific wrapping paper too so I know exactly what is for who without the need for gift tags!

Original poster

littlemisssarcastic · 20/12/2011 11:47

Do you fancy doing my wrapping too TwelveGaysOfChristmas??

OP posts:

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