To think not wrapping Christmas presents is thoroughly bizarre

[Bearbehind]

I’ve literally never heard of this before being on MN.

I genuinely don’t understand the concept of giving a gift and it not being in some sort of wrapping.

It seems so clinical not to do so

Presents from Father Christmas aren’t wrapped in my house, but they’re in stockings so they’re not immediately visible. That’s how it was for me growing up too and the excitement of delving a hand into the stocking and seeing what would be pulled out was enough, didn’t need wrapping.

All other gifts are either wrapped or put in gift bags - nothing under the tree should be obvious.

My sis made gift bags out of a couple of cheap, Christmas duvets years ago. She ties them with ribbon and reuses every year. For big items ie like bags she'd use a blanket .......not wrapping at all is taking worthiness a bit too far.

“Santa” wraps everything in tacky children’s paper here. It’s loads of fun.

The past few years I’ve wrapped gifts for others in brown paper or fabric and decorated with gorgeous reusable ribbon/twine/twigs/pine cones insert your own wanky embellishment here

Santa when I was growing up didn’t wrap a thing but when we visit my parents house now for Christmas he’s found the time to wrap a sackful of stuff per couple/child! Maybe he was busier in the 80’s or couldn’t afford the labour 🎄🎁

Santa randomly stopped wrapping our presents when we were still quite small. Possibly because there were five of us so quite a lot to wrap but even then I remember wishing he would wrap our gifts and wondering why he’d stopped! Not to the extent it ruined Christmas or anything but yes, I definitely think it’s nicer to have wrapped presents.

He started gift wrapping again when we were teenagers. I suspect that was my mother’s doing - my dad is the type who doesn’t really see the point of nice little touches like that (although he is generous) so I can definitely see him being the one to decide it wasn’t necessary.

We never had presents wrapped as a child because wrapping paper costs money and when you're already Christmas shopping in charity shops its wrapping paper or an extra present or two . Mum used to put our presents in our pillowcases one at a time and bring them through to us so we could still play squeezing them and guessing. Part of me remembers it as a lovely tradition, the other part of me puts way too much effort into wrapping DC's presents beautifully with ribbons and bows.

I've never heard of this being a thing before.

Very large gifts which need putting together (eg play houses) then yes.

DH being extremely lazy handing over in a carrier bag I can at least understand- although obviously not appreciate.

But not wrapping DC's presents by design seems weird.

Santa doesn’t wrap presents

Of course he does1

I've never wrapped presents that go in the stockings (which used to be from Father Christmas when the children believed in him).

I've always wrapped other presents but this year have decided to make some fabric bags from Christmassy material to put family presents in, and obviously we will reuse them in future years.

I definitely wouldn't like 'naked' presents!

I remember my parents hiding a bike behind the curtains one Christmas rather than wrapping it, I remember trying really hard to smile and be thankful for the gifts I was given, but was jealous of my brother's 'main present' can't even remember what is was now. Then they asked me to open the curtains I did and there was my new bike with a bow. I thought it was great at the time, a little cruel when I was older (they knew I was trying not to show I was upset), but recently DM said it got late on Christmas Eve, they'd planned to wrap it, it was too much faff so they decided to hide it and drink some wine instead 😁

Presents from Santa were never wrapped when I was a kid. They were put on the end of my bed. Only presents from family were wrapped and placed under the tree.

We wrap presents apart from stockings and big items bikes/toy kitchens etc.

IMO part of the fun is unwrapping presents and as an older child/teen having a squeeze of them and seeing if you can work out what they are.

I grew up with a mother who tried hard but was (& still is to this day) famously shit at thinking of gifts.
If they hadn't been wrapped there would have been no joy at Christmas for me at all.
The promise of a wrapped present is often more exciting than the reality of whatever is inside it.
On those (rare for me) occasions when it's something I actually want or like at all it just makes the surprise even better that it was wrapped.

Tearing off the wrapping, trying to figure out what could be in it before you open it & so on is a big part of the pleasure, even if all you find inside is a pair of slippers with 3mm soles & 2 matching hangers.

If it's just a pile of goods purchased from the shops piled up under the tree that's not about giving/getting presents, that's just the result of a shopping trip that hasn't been put away yet.
Why bother with a tree, or presents or anything else if that's the amount of effort you are making?

I do check if things need batteries & fit them if required before wrapping though or charge anything that needs it.
Nothing worse than getting a little robot or whatever & having to wait 24 hours for a first charge or a week to get batteries for it.

metro.co.uk/2018/11/27/the-eco-friendly-guide-to-christmas-gift-wrap-8169273/

I bought some brown wrapping paper from Next one year (still have some I think), it looked quite classy, some had White Christmas trees on and the other, snowflakes.

Where I live all wrapping paper is recycled, I always make sure there are no bits of sellotape left on it.

I can't imagine giving (or receiving) gifts that aren't wrapped.

When I was little most of the gifts from parents were put under the tree unwrapped after we went to bed. It was only gifts from others that were brought to the house before Christmas that were wrapped. Oh, and our gifts to parents and one another.

Our family has only used bags and decorative boxes for years. There is one particularly wonderful hat box that has gone round the family at least twice.

Definitely not an Irish thing. Our presents were always wrapped and they still are. Father Christmas wraps in special FC paper and then puts in the big sacks (and over the floor), although growing kids + technology + expense = smaller presents and so their haul this year will be in a sandwich bag!

Father Christmas gives the stocking which contains some wrapped and some unwrapped presents. He also leaves some bigger ones under the tree - which are wrapped. I have to make sure he uses different wrapping paper and labels from the rest of the presents, which are from friends and family. It's quite complicated....

I agree we should use brown paper or newspaper, or make sure bought paper has no plastic or glitter, so it can be recycled. But where is the fun otherwise....??

We wrap everything under the tree and going outside of the house (to other relatives etc).

But Santa is far too busy to wrap.

It's the same in most houses that I know in real life

I’d be proper pissed off to be one of the kids who Santa couldn’t be arsed to wrap presents for!

You are so, so, so wrong. Unwrapped presents is still just about the norm in Ireland and OMFG there is nothing like it. Walking into a room and seeing everything set up in front of you is like an explosion of joy. Your eyes can't take it in, your brain whirls. You see one thing, focus on that for a bit, then another. Then you realise that you never even saw the thing that's been right in front of you for the last five minutes because your brain was literally overloaded. As both the child and the parent it's just freaking amazing.

And that's even before you get to notice all of the wacky little jokes Santa has played. Slightly mixed up toys arranged in away that's personal and amusing like when Firestar was on Teen Titan Tower instead of StarFire. "Oh no Santa, got mixed up between the two. Of well, it's cool to have the other Teen Titans and Spiderman will be happy Firestar has moved in with us. Oh wait what's that???? Starfire is eating pizza with the ninja turtles!!!!!" 3 years on and it's still talked about. Then something utterly amazing waiting to be found right as you finished with your stocking and figured you had everything. A little treasure hunt or puzzle to solve!

And then when it's all over. Everything is made up, ready to play with. No faffing about with stupid boxes that need an engineering degree to get the toys out of. No putting crap together. No boredom or frustration at some badly thought out, impossible to set up toy. Just ready to get down on the floor and play. Perfect.

Is the surprise worth compromising the habits of other creatures though?

Stripping the earth of resources?

What do you think our descendants will make of our decadence?

Santa never wrapped our presents either other than maybe putting them in big gift bags. I think we've turned out ok despite this apparent neglect.

(I'm 34 and my mum still produces a bag with the tag written "from Santa" every year. My parents have never bought me a Christmas present 😂)

@lionelritchiestolemynotebook (did he??) I can really relate to that. My parents gave me a lovely Victorian writing desk when I was about ten. It wasn't wrapped and was just standing by my pile of presents in the room where we all had individual heaps of stuff.

I opened all the wrapped things and was very happy - didn't feel I'd missed out, as far as I remember - but my Dad kept saying, 'can't you see your main present?' But I suppose I didn't really notice furniture at that age and I kept looking around, and genuinely had no idea! I think they were disappointed but as it wasn't wrapped my eyes just went past it every time…….

So yes - wrapping is important, I think. Even a sheet and a bow would have done.

Santa doesn't wrap presents here, he delivers toys set up ready to play with, looking all pretty on a chair for each child. He also kindly sorts the other wrapped presents that aren't from him into correct person piles. It's definitely fun to arrive into the living room and instantly see that Santa's brought what you asked for. Imo anyway.

My presents from my parents were never individually wrapped as a child, they were just in a sack. Gifts from aunties etc were wrapped and left under tge tree. I thought that was what everyone did until we had our first chikd and my husband insisted on wrapping everything up separately for her. He still does, even though they are all teenagers or older. It drives me nuts - such a waste of time, money and resources. Last year one of the kids got a bike and DH spent hours wrapping it up even though we had all been to the factory to order it in October and then again to pick it up and get a bike fit done a few weeks before Christmas so there was no surprise whatsoever.
I've decided to use brown paper this year though. To my shame I hadn't realised that gift wrap generally can't be recycled until this year but I am determined to do better from now. I do reuse gift bags multiple times though.

Mine weren’t wrapped and it was fine but I prefer to wrap them now.

Yikes alittleprivacy I think opening the boxes and taking the toys out a step too far!!