To think the idea of a christmas stocking is so parents can get an extra hour in bed??

[TheCunnyFunt]

DP and I are disagreeing about this. DD (3.6yo) has a stocking which is currently hanging on the fireplace. DP thinks it should stay there and be opened just before the tree presents. This has been done every year since she was born and the first year she is really old enough to understand at least sort of properly! I think we should put it in DD's room on christmas eve after it gets filled so it's there when she wakes up.

His argument is that she always wakes up, gets out of bed, opens her door and stands at the safety gate shouting for us and would open her stocking or ignore it and then shout us straightaway anyway (sometimes saying her room is too dark). Plus there'll be chocolate in it.

My argument is that bed is where stockings are meant to be opened! DD gets excited at the sight of presents so if she woke up and saw her stocking she would open it (plus one of the presents for it is a torch!) and play with whatever is in it!

I hand it over to you MNetters, who is being unreasonable here? I KNOW it's not me

Heading? Fuxake. Hearing.

Reading this has made me a bit misty eyed mine are older and for the last few years ive had to stomp about to wake them up

An extra hour, I wish.

We put the stocking in their rooms and the bring them in -at 4am I try to enforce the no downstairs till 7, but give up after an hour of talking and giggling.

My bro's DCs have never ever got up early, even when they were tiny. They had to wake them up.

I can't wait for this year's stockings. I will have my adult niece and her OH staying with us- she will be having her very first stocking at the age of 38. She was brought up in a very strict christian home where christmas stockings were not considered appropriate, so has never had the fun of a stocking. There will be 7 of us on christmas morning- the oldest is 82 and she will have a stocking too!!

bigbluestars (no idea how to tag here, sorry) absolutely! We'll have a house of 10, and every single person will have a stocking. Including the mega scrooge (former BIL)

Stocking are defiantly for opening in bed ;) both my dhnandI still open our there !!!!! And yes I still sneak around at silly o'clock delivering the children's......they are late teens and early twenties .

Stockings hung on doorknobs, to be opened in parents' bed. We did this right up until my sister and I left home when I was 25.

We used to have chocolate to eat, smellies, some random stuff my mum would find in the pound shop, and something to occupy us.

We never used to have a time we couldn't get up before, which I think they regretted the year we were up about 3am. Looking back, my parents were very tolerant on Christmas day!

I can't explain to you how gutted I was the year I came in from working in a bar about 1am Christmas morning and he'd already 'been' and left my stocking out

Stockings on beds here. We had stockings downstairs as children and I much prefer it this way. It's not lonely, it's exciting and stops stocking presents getting overshadowed by bigger stuff. They do play together in their bedrooms with stocking stuff and not come through to us. Last year it was so lovely lying in bed hearing the eldest shouting 'wow, how totally awesome is this?' And squeals of excitement from his little sisters. Yes, they ate the chocolate snowmen but that doesn't bother me, it's Christmas!

'Mummy! I can open the gate!' Were the first words DP and I heard this morning and DD can indeed open the gate now.

For the people moaning that we have a gate, it's for a multitude of reasons.

1. Our landing is about 2ft square (without measuring) with a step up into our room and a step up into the hallway that leads to our bathroom and DD's room.
2. The landing gets no natural light so is very dark, even in the day. DD can't reach the light switches so the tiny landing with a step down and then up can be very precarious in the dark.
3. The dog isn't allowed in DD's room.

DD's room and the hallway used to be one big room so there is a doorway in between the landing and her room (iyswim?) which is where the gate is. So she has access to the bathroom.

We put the girls stockings on the end of their beds the night before. Not for extra time in bed though but because it always been a tradition that the PIL did for DH. My parents never did traditions

Plus I am usually the one that is waking everyone up early the DD's (now 5 and 7) always sleep on Christmas morning for some odd reason. However I am awake from about 4am with strict instructions from DH not to wake him or the DD's until at least 6 or 7am

I have never had a stocking I always thought they where just an American invention and was told they weren't the done thing here.