Tree presents on Boxing Day?

[AnathemaPulsifer]

What madness is this? I’ve seen two separate people on MN threads referring to opening tree presents on Boxing Day. Ours were all open by 9:30am on Christmas Day.

YABU = yes, we save presents for Boxing Day
YANBU = no, we open ours on Christmas Day or even Christmas Eve

Bonus points if you save ALL your tree presents for Boxing Day and can explain whyyyy.

It took my 2 year old until this evening to get through all his presents. Even with only one present from each family member/close friend, it ends up a lot of stuff!

Never heard of it either. I wonder if because people aren’t mixing this year some are holding back presents (that have already been sent to them) from people they would normally see on Boxing Day.

Isn’t Boxing Day traditionally the day you give ‘the staff’ their Christmas boxes (gifts)? It’s where the name for December 26th came from.

We buy extra presents for boxing day

Usually games and/or jigsaws for everyone to share

Dc are 5 and 7 and get present fatigue. By Christmas Day afternoon they could open the most amazing present ever and be totally unimpressed. So I save some for Boxing Day just to spread it out and mean that presents get properly appreciated over the 2 days.

I probably won't keep doing it as they get bigger and presents get pricier and therefore fewer.

Lots of reasons. DD spent yesterday with her Dad so we shifted Christmas to today. Some people are shift workers so might move the celebration to a more convenient day so they haven't been up all night or need to go to bed early.
To spread out opening presents so little ones don't get bored and overwhelmed and allowing their children to play with the toy and get bored before moving on to another one.

We always used to get a tree present on boxing day when we visited our grandparents. My parents now do it for their grandkids. I have no idea where/when the tradition started though

We run out of steam so save some for Boxing Day. DD gets overwhelmed (15 months) but even pre baby we always had leftover presents (very generous families).
It’s lovely to have some for the next day.
As a child I had Christmas Day twice as with divorced parents we did a day with each. Two dinners and two lots of presents is marvelous

My 17 month old opened some today as he had a lot yesterday so saved some from grandparents for today. Wouldn't usually though. Everyone just opens theirs up on Christmas Day.

Our DS gets overwhelmed with too many presents. So we were only halfway through his by bedtime yesterday.

DH and I didn't get on to any of ours till DS was in bed - too busy playing with him, cooking dinner, going to the park, video- calling relatives. After bedtime, we only managed two each before falling asleep on the sofa/in the armchair. Woke up in the early hours with very stiff necks.

So we still have presents under the tree.

How many presents did you have in the family to open by 09:30 and what is your routine? Do you all open at once?

@Goldencurtain

How many presents did you have in the family to open by 09:30 and what is your routine? Do you all open at once?

Not many, there are only 3 of us. Even opening in rounds it doesn’t take long.

I can completely understand those with small kids and mountains of presents saving some for Boxing Day, I was mostly interested in those who (it sounds like) save ALL their tree presents for Boxing Day.

We always have gifts from Father Christmas when we come downstairs in the morning, then swap presents from eachother.

We then have gifts from one side of the family in the afternoon (usually whoever we are visiting that day) then the other side of the family on Boxing Day.

We often have gifts from friends left until the day after. The DC are little so like to play with their toys as they open them.

Tbf we still have tree presents to open for DS but he’s so little he gets overwhelmed easily and due to the pandemic family sent all of their presents here / went a little mad with gift giving.

We’re giving him a couple to open each day and will be done by NYE. This way he has new toys each day and time to enjoy them. It also gives us the time to figure out which are favourites and which are better to put up for a few months time when he’s old enough.

We were done by 7.45! Kids had about 12-15 presents each, including some little bits like a hairbrush. Saved 4 or 5 presents from Grandparents to open later over Zoom.

DD is 2 years old and it's taken her until this afternoon to open everything. We did it in stages so she wouldn't get overwhelmed; family dropped off all her gifts here, whereas normally we'd probably do the rounds and it would be staggered that way.

We do presents from people physically present on Christmas Day. People who aren't there, or haven't bought for everyone (my friend to me for example), get saved for later. We appreciate things more because we don't rush through them.

We have presents from Father Christmas on Christmas Day (in the morning).

Presents that are from, say, me to mum, or me to my brothers and vice versa are done on Boxing Day in the evening. We do it this way because my family gets together on Boxing Day. On Christmas Day, they're either at home or with in-laws, so it just makes more sense to so it on Boxing Day. Plus, it saves some excitement for the next day!

We always used to spread present opening over several days when our children were little as they appreciated what they were given more and do not become overwhelmed and overexcited. Even though they are now grown up we still carry on with the tradition of opening the presents over two days and l still have a few to open tomorrow. I have been extremely lucky but my birthday was just before Christmas so I enjoy it more if I can open my presents slowly and calmly, a fee at a time.

My mil used to do tree presents on twelfth night when the tree came down. A farewell present from the tree.

I've never heard of it but I guess it makes sense if you have lots of gifts coming from extended family. Quite nice to save some back
Buying more gifts for Boxing day just seems excessive. We cut way back on gifts this year , the kids got 3 each, they were very happy with and it made me realise how much money we have wasted over the years.

We do sack presents first thing on Christmas Day, tree presents from us and the relatives that are there around mid-day and then other presents from the relatives that visit on the 27th December.

I saved one for each DD and DH and I'm
Really glad I did, as they went down very well. They were all boxes of sweets And chocolates I'd put together, DD1 got a Japanese box as she mad on anime, plus a Japanese soft drink; DD2 American snacks, chocolate bars, root beer, cereal, pop tarts; DD3 British sweets, candy floss, walnut whips stuff like that; DH got protein bars, and a load of milka bars and Hershey's peanut butter stuff.

What's a tree present?!

We opened all ours about 10am on Christmas day. My OH's family had a tradition of opening one present on Christmas eve, so we did that too. But I don't know of anyone who saves some presents til Boxing Day!

No way could my dc leave presents sat their all day all opened Xmas opening them.