Present opening, how long is too long to wait?

[andpeggy29]

So first Christmas ever away from home, and staying with my husbands parents, who i get on with really well.

My family tradition as I expect most people's is wake up, open presents, eat special breakfast, get showered dressed etc.

Here it seems everyone sleeps in quite late (10pm) then gets up showered and dressed, don't really do breakfast as they are prepping dinner (which isn't until 7pm) and they wait til all dinner guests come over before any presents can be opened (5pm)

I understand everyone has their own traditions and I completely respect this but OMG I've been awake since 7am!

Does anyone else wait all day?

When the kids were little we used to presents first thing. Now they are older we get up about 8 have showers etc and then do presents. Then we have lunch and then we go to my sisters for a party.

Everyone does things at Christmas differently. I couldn't imagine waiting until the evening to open presents though. If we didn't do it first thing we probably wouldn't have time later. It usually takes the best part of 2 hours!

I have no DCs but in my family (whether there has been children or not) the tradition has always been:

Stockings
Light breakfast - tea and toast/cereal
Presents
Get dressed
Proper breakfast- bacon/eggs etc
Dinner preps with dinner round 3pn
TV/films with wine and chocolates until bedtime.

I love it that way!

When the children were small then presents were fair game any time after 6am. As they got older it was mid morning (when they got up) and now they're adults we are very civilised and wait until after the Queens Speech

Boys get up at 6 and open stockings in our bed.
Then we skype both sets of parents and they open a main present in front of them. Then they can open the rest.
All presents open by 7-7:30!!!
Breakfast at the beach with a nice walk. Home late morning. Weather dependent we either have a hot roast or cold. ( this year we had a hot roast as it was only 32* around 2:30).
Little walk to the beach before watching a movie. Early night as up at 5:30 because of work Boxing Day

Well DS3 woke at 12.10 am Christmas day morning and noticed that Santa had visited, and left his stocking (about 25 minutes before, on my way to bed) so was desperate to get up and open presents. I managed to keep him in bed till 7am - there is no way on earth he could have waited till 7pm!!

The teenagers had agreed to get up and open stockings with him, and then go back to bed for a bit, but once they were up they stayed up, so it ended up being stockings around 7am, breakfast, showers, presents around 9.30, playing for a while before going to grandmas for lunch at 1.30 ish, followed by more presents, tea, and home around 6.30

First time ever we left the stockings outside the kids doors. They had them when they found them then once the puppy had us up everyone else got up so presents all then.

Lunch at home, just us, then to PIL for their gifts. This has worked well. Normally we go to them for lunch and the kids wait hours for a present then it's another hour for another..Not what happened when dh was a kid.

We get up about 8 and open stockings. Then have breakfast and shower. Then do family gifts about 10.30/11. I wouldn't want to do all gifts at the crack of dawn but equally I wouldn't want to wait all day. Having said that my oh and I haven't opened any of our own gifts yet. We are doing that today as we went to visit family yesterday so just did kids presents.

Presents as soon as we get up, breakfast and then get showered dressed sometime late morning/ early afternoon, Christmas dinner about 5pm. We don't do church and try not to leave the house on Christmas Day so it works for us. TBH I never knew people waited to open presents or took it in turns to open one each, sounds like torture.

Are these actual stockings like I used to wear on dates or bank robbers used to wear on their faces when people used cash?

I've always preferred a pillowcase at the end of the bed and mad ripping open as soon as it gets light.

I read an article recently which claimed that the delay in opening presents on Christmas day is shown to be positively correlated to how well a family is likely to do. Those on benefits were much more likely to have opened Christmas presents immediately whereas the professional classes were more likely to have waited until late in the day. However, it was probably just a rehash of the usual delayed gratification and middle-class analogy.

Stockings first thing, a small present each on the table at lunchtime and main presents later after all the clearing up is done. We waited slightly longer this year as ds2 was working and finished at 4pm.

No kids to take into account and everyone's waited all year so an extra hour or so makes no difference to us.

Late morning in this house. As a kid we had to wait for grandparents to arrive for lunch.

I've stuck to the later opening for my dc's. .It gives them a chance to play with stocking presents first..

I think I read the same piece in the Telegraph. A lot of those presents came from somewhere called Argos which is not the one mentioned by Homer

Kids go through stosckings when they wake
They then wake mum and dad to show them/mum and dad have cup of tea/coffee whilst being 'amazed' at all the things santa brought
We then do presents from under the tree, usually a lot in our family.
Then while adults prepare christmas lunch kids play with presents.
In the past we also used to more presents in the evening, ones from uncles/aunties/grandma etc but this was when everyone used to gather at my nans house for the evening, since she passed away everyones just kinda done their own thing.

We dont do christmas breakfast as we usually have a roast lunch around 1 or 2 and then like a meat platter in the evening. 40 degrees here yesterday and mum still insisted on doing a roast.