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

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

Same here, mine love building it (more so than actually playing with it) and would be gutted if it was given to them ready built! DD1 (6) has the big Lego Friends fairground set for Christmas and one of the main reasons I’ve bought it is so we can build it together.

Rain I think it's the minority who put toothbrushes in stockings! That's a very 1940s thing to do! And earlier I suppose.

I think most people would just put nice things in them.

But I can't accept unwrapped gifts! No!

amigababy

That's a fab idea. I might whip the sewing machine out myself (needs to learn how to use one first).

What is a MN stocking exactly? I'd live to know. I still put socks and pants in a stocking, along with pj's, chocolate and all the crafting stuff and little knick knacks that are fun. To be fair the last two years my son didn't even empty the stocking properly until a few days after christmas as he's too excited about the other stuff.

Please don't tell me people are getting competitive with bloody stocking fillers now and filling them with games consoles and Pandora jewelery? It's bad enough with Christmas Eve boxes.

Actually if I remember rightly, stockfillers were wrapped, Santa presents were left
Unwrapped for me as a child (there were 3 of us).

I wrap my son's Santa presents in papar with santa on. It's s bloody pain in the arse though.

Meh, my DCs get new pants and socks to bulk out their stockings, and they are always pretty excited. Maybe that will change as they get older.

*paper, not papar!

Hell, let's worry about wrapping presents in all the usual instantly disguarded, commercial crap ... ... absolutely no need to worry about the environment or the future for our children or children's children.

A relatively simple thing we can all do, or think about alternative ways to wrap a present ... ...

Actually having said that I have got them some awful LOL doll welly socks to go in their stocking this year. They asked for them in Tesco and I said no because they were hideous, then went back to buy them without them knowing.

Half the fun of Christmas is guessing what's in the wrapping!

Also, my parents used to wrap everything because it would keep us occupied for twice as long on Christmas morning.

We would all come down on christmas morning, each of me and my siblings would have our pile of presents on a different chair/end of the sofa,so we would have a few seconds of running round the room to find "our" pile and then would spend the next hour opening presents, stopping to marvel over each individual item before opening the next. The competition was always who would unwrap their selection box first because it was the one day we were allowed chocolate for breakfast, so our parents would often hide them in different sized boxes to trick us.

If we came in to everything unwrapped it would take away half of the fun and would be overwhelming to have everything out at once - where do you even start?

Gifts to others are wrapped but not Santa's haul.

The Santa gifts are all laid out (pre-setup if needed) infront of the Christmas tree. Shoes are left out by the kids on Christmas Eve and the Santa pressies are placed by the shoes. I have no idea where this tradition came from. We had it as kids as did my Mothers family. (We're Irish)

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.

That’s a great idea! You must be really proud of her too.

No wrapping of Santa gifts here either- life is too short, and as others have described there was no disappointment in our house as kids walking into the living room and seeing the all stuff which my mum had artfully laid out- as young kids it was just mindblowing. As teenagers we generally picked our "big" presents ourselves so it would be particularly wasteful to have wrapped those when we knew what was inside! It was the same in DH's (English) childhood home.

Now DH has a childhood friend whose parents not only wrapped the Santa presents, but took them out of their packaging and assembled them- so if it was something like a Lego kit, his dad would sit with the instructions and build the whole thing ready for his mum to wrap it. Bizarre.

I never knew people didn't wrap presents until I read it on here either.

All the illustrations of Santa show wrapped presents, so he clearly does all the wrapping!
All the presents come from Santa in our house anyway, but naked presents really sounds grim - if you want to see toy, you go to a shop, don't you?

I'm more surprised at the amount of people who had to wait till after church/dinner etc to actually get their presents. I'd have combusted if I had to wait that long!

I've never seen anyone post about putting a toothbrush in a Christmas stocking. Though I am sick to the back teeth of the patronising 'something they want, something they need, something to wear, something to read' doggerel that posters trot out. Those stockings sound dull as ditchwater (and I have book-loving DC)

I put an LOL doll themed toothbrush in my DDs stocking last year and she loved it. Harry Potter socks this year and I know she will be thrilled

Santa didn't wrap our presents when we were kids. We loved the gifts! Though those were the days when we didn't have as much as kids do today ...

My ex didn't wrap things or put gift tags on

It drove me batty and not just because it ruined asthetics if under the tree

Santa wraps presents here, except for chocolate.

Although I could put up with having to wait for a suitable moment in the day to open presents, I wished it wasn't my brother slowly and deliberately taking plenty of time to hand them out, while wearing a Santa hat. Santa hats really annoy me: I prefer the Bah Humbug ones. And don't get me started on stockings embroidered with "I've been very very good" or "Santa I can explain".

Someone at primary school told the class of how they received a very big present (actually for a summer birthday, rather than Christmas): they had to close their eyes and were walked a short distance to a mysterious place. When they were allowed to open their eyes, they found they were inside a playhouse, with the door and shutters closed, to make the lovely discovery that this playhouse was in their garden, and was their own. I was sooo jealous... not of the gift itself, but of the way they'd received it!

I've decided to be more eco-friendly this Xmas, prompted by the DCs wanting to reduce plastics etc. I've bought brown parcel paper and labels which can be recycled and will be wrapping presents in those. I've bought some Washi tape to use in place of sellotape but now I'm thinking it will look really naff.

For young kids, it can be much better to open, cut off the plastic ties, add the batteries, etc. beforehand. Then just stick some ribbon/bow on it to make sure they know it's a present, but nothing kills the vibe Xmas day than a toddler who is more interested in the paper they've ripped off than the present...well, sometimes it can slow them down, so can be good....but, nicer they can play with something fairly quickly

Santa here wraps everything Inc stockings and sacks. . In a different paper to what we use.

I remember one Yr as a kid my mum. /santa didn't wrap stockings. I remember thinking it was boring and less exciting I was about 8?
I still remember It now...

Most of the fun is in wondering what the wrapped present is. We don't open ours until Christmas night to keep the anticipation going.

My MIL never used to wrap presents because that's how she was brought up. She used to hand it over in the paper bag it came in at the shop. I also have a friend who does the same and she just says she's hopeless at wrapping presents.

I do think it's a little odd not to wrap them.

Yes agree with preparing the toy too.
Dd has a toy that I know she'll love as her friend has one. At 20m.shes not going to understand that it needs building. So we'll build it and set it up before wrapping