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

You have to wrap the presents! We were kids in the 70’s and they were all wrapped. Half the fun feeling the gifts to see if you could guess the presents

green exactly! Our children love to try to work out which present could be "the thing" they've wanted so badly..."is this a laptop? Nope! Just a nail set!" Ha ha! My older DD likes to open all the small ones first...they always take their time, look at and admire each thing...look at one another's gifts too. And they like seeing DH and I get things.

We do a stocking each for me and DH with all the little things we love in them. Plus new PJs.

Sadly a lot of wrapping paper isn’t recyclable. Quite a lot of it claims to be recycled but that doesn’t mean it’s recyclable. We’ve bought some brown recycled and recyclable wrapping paper this year. So much cheaper than regular wrapping paper too.

I love wrapped presents but if you stop and think about it it is insane that we send millions and millions of miles of paper to landfill just so it can be ripped off a gift in less than 15 seconds.

I've never heard of this before either, all of my presents were wrapped, even the big ones and stocking fillers. Opening presents took hours as we opened then one at a time and tried to guess what they were, somethings the batteries would be wrapped individually too. My parents were never wasteful and would recycle excessively throughout the year so probably though a few rolls of wrapping paper weren't that bad.

I always wrap kids stuff for an element of surprise and usually chuck adult gifts in a gift bag.

I HATE wrapping presents. I have zero patience for it and I lose all my coordination while doing it somehow. I don't understand people who spend so much money and time on it.

Child of the 60s/70s here. Each of us 4 kids had a spot for Father Christmas to leave our gifts. Mine was the armchair. A few of the gifts were wrapped but most not. We didn't care - it was all about getting what we'd wished for, not creating a John Lewis tableau.

dd has gone very eco-friendly, borrowed my ancient sewing machine this year and sewed lots of cloth gift bags which will get used this year for the first time. I'm quite excited by the idea.

I had no idea some people didn’t wrap presents. I always stayed at my grandparents house over Christmas as a child, when got up on Christmas morning all the presents would be laid out on the rug in front of the fireplace, it was a magic thing to see. I don’t think a naked pile of Buckaroo, felt-tip pens, a Blue Peter annual and a bottle of Matey bubble bath would have been the same.

I like the idea of making reusable cloth gift bags though. I don’t have time this year but I think I’ll do it for next Christmas.

I never wrapped my DC’s gifts when they were all babies/toddlers because it seemed like a pointless waste of time. They couldn’t unwrap and they had absolutely no idea what was going on. I used to put them all in a reusable personalised sack instead.

I don’t wrap birthday gifts for their friends because I can’t be bothered, I just shove the gift in a nice gift bag.

Wrapping paper is an astonishing waste of resources and always seems utterly pointless to me.

You obviously haven't seen the amount some of us buy for our kids! I'd be wrapping for weeks.

The one big present from FC isn't wrapped. When would he find the time? The stocking present aren't wrapped either.

But all the others are wrapped with the names of who sent them on the labels.

For me, beautifully wrapped presents form an integral part of the Christmas decorations.

I love wrapping gifts for any occasion.

I'm really conflicted on this. Wrapped presents are so exciting! Seeing the Christmas tree lights glinting off the shiny paper and being so excited as to what was inside. But then eco it is not. We always had everything wrapped, except maybe the difficult or huge ones. Ones that need to be set up or built like a toy kitchen would be the "feature present" with everything else grouped round it etc.

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

You see this genuinely surprises me because I don’t know anyone in real life who doesn’t wrap the ‘santa’ presents. It’s one of those things where I know everyone does things differently but not wrapping Christmas presents has shocked me a bit .

We never had wrapped Santa presents, were all put in a big Santa sack on our seat on the sofa!

Gifts from family and friends all wrapped.

it was all about getting what we'd wished for, not creating a John Lewis tableau

I don’t think people wrap them because of how it looks do they? I don’t anyway! It’s because the unwrapping is part of the fun (for us anyway).

it was all about getting what we'd wished for, not creating a John Lewis tableau

What? People have been wrapping gifts since before there was even television!

Elbeagle a combination of both...because it looks pretty and because it's exciting.

Santa never wrapped our presents as kids - that was what made them different to the wrapped family presents under the tree. I can assure you there was no sense of anticlimax on bursting into the sitting room and seeing a pile of the things you’d been hoping for, all shiny and new [santa]

Santa is far too busy to wrap presents. Everything is left in a big Santa sack that you put out on the sofa the night before (named in case Santa gets confused!), near the whisky and mince pie plus carrots for the reindeer.

Totally magical

Surely the elves wrap the presents though, not santa himself?

Santa wraps them in a STOCKING, as any fule kno.

Think about being a kid in a toy shop. The excitement is in seeing the brightly coloured boxed stuff, the brands, the displays of toys already set up. So if you get up on Christmas morning and it's all laid out, unwrapped it's like being a kid in a toy shop!

Personally, I find MN version of Xmas stockings a bit shit. What kid wants a new toothbrush, socks etc for Xmas?

I remember when I got older and presents became smaller and more expensive, and therefore fewer (a mobile phone for example), my parents would wrap it in a giant, odd sized box so when I saw it on Christmas Day it would throw me off the scent . Just a mobile phone under a tree wouldn’t have been as fun!

Personally, I find MN version of Xmas stockings a bit shit. What kid wants a new toothbrush, socks etc for Xmas?

Is there a ‘MN’ version of a stocking? I’ve never put toothbrushes or socks in a stocking! I assume some people on MN do and some don’t.

We’ve always wrapped , I think it’s half the fun , even my dog likes to unwrap his presents . Then again I also never did any pre building of stuff so if the dc got Lego / playmobil etc when they were small it was given in its box and they helped build it .