to feel ashamed of myself at xmas

[Ceci03]

so, when I was a child, around age 8-12 we had father christmas. and on xmas morn the 3 of us, 3 girls would get up and go downstairs and bring our presents back to the bedroom 2 of us shared, and we would get into bed - 2 in one bed, one in the other - and my sisters say I 'made them' open the presents one by one. We took it in turns to open a present, and the other two would watch. My parents would stay in bed. Both my sisters have brought this up and I'm ashamed of myself for being so controlling. I hate the child I was. I hate that I was not more easy going and just 'fun'. Have been thinking about it a lot. One sister brings it up every year, and pokes fun at me. But I remember it different - that we all wanted to do it. I know it seems silly, but I'm so ashamed of who I was back then. So ashamed that I was so uptight and controlling. (I'm the opposite - I'm probably the most easy going of the 3 sisters now, and very easy going on my own kids)

I made my children wait between presents - we'd all get to open one together, but then we had to wait until after breakfast, or after a film. They're adults now and it's our family tradition, they'll probably pass it on. It's fun if it lasts all day instead of being over straight away.

I find it really sad that parents would stay in bed rather than see the kids opening presents on Christmas morning sad

Really? I think it's great that they didn't make present opening the focus of the day. My parents did the same. Actually our Santa presents weren't even wrapped. Most were shared between the sibling group anyway, we only got one or two personal gifts each. It never bothered us.

I'm 35 and I still make my family open Christmas presents one at a time and in a specific order. I had to change the order when I got married so we could fit DH in the sequence but other than that, it's never changing as far as I'm concerned.

Life is to short OP. I also have two sisters, I used to sneak down and open the Easter eggs and steal the chocolate bars.
My older sister would tell us scary stories until we cried. The younger one was a demon. We all take the piss about things from the past. I am sure if they realised it made you feel bad they'd stop.
This year own it and say so what if I was a bossy big sis at Christmas.

I don’t think this is weird and I think your sisters bringing it up is unfortunately just a thing sisters can do. Mine certainly brings up crap from our childhood. Not in a mean way—we laugh about it but it might be worth telling your sister that you don’t find this fun.

Fwiw my parents always made us do one present at a time. And we still do this as adults. Also I was a bossy child (sometimes I cringe) but I’m also now a bossy adult, just with the self awareness to rein it in (a little). It doesn’t make you horrible! Or mean you were a horrible child.