Disagreement with DH about Xmas day protocol with the children

[Socksforxmas]

DH and I have twin boys who will turn 4 in a few weeks and this Christmas feels really special to us with it being the first one that they seem to understand. Previous Christmases they were too young to really get it but this year they're really excited about the whole thing.

We've run into a disagreement about how the format of the day should be. In my household growing up my brother and I would get up in the morning, open our stockings in bed with a parent and then head into the living room to dive into all the presents (opening all of them), have 2-3 hours of playing with our new things before lunch is served and then family activities for the rest of the night (playing games, watching whatever Christmas specials, all with lots of sweet treats, chocolates, nice drinks etc).

For DH it was get up in the morning, open stockings and then open 1 or 2 presents, leave the rest to go on a family walk around the park, come back for lunch, open a few more presents, do a board game of some kind and then opening the rest of the presents slowly throughout the day, watching the queens speech (only TV allowed on the day). They weren't allowed to play with new toys on the day (that's what boxing day is for and Christmas is for family) and there were strict rules regarding how much sweets they were allowed. Also a church visit at some point.

With the exception of going church and watching the queens(kings) speech which he has no interest in doing, he wants to pretty much recreate his parents way of doing Christmas as he thinks it's a good way of teaching the boys about the importance of family time and delayed gratification. I see where he's coming from but tbh it all sounds a bit miserable to me...

Every other day of the year we're fairly strict about our the twins diets, amount of screen time, and teaching them to be patient, respectful of others and they are for the majority of time very well behaved children who abide our rules well. I always thought of Christmas as being the one day a year where they could just go nuts and not have so much restriction and control on them. I'd like them to be able to tear into all their presents right away, have time to play with their new things etc

Aibu to think Christmas should be an exception to the usual strict and fairly controlled environment they're in or do DHs ideas have more merit?

We do Xmas dinner on Xmas Eve. I cook.

Xmas day - stockings in bed with us in the morning. DH cooks a big breakfast. Then presents opened one by one (fairly quickly when they were small) so we can see what everyone has. Then they get the afternoon to play games while I do a buffet dinner. We don’t usually watch much TV, though sometimes put on an Xmas film in the evening.

Except for church and a walk, how your DH had his Christmas is exactly how mine were and very similar for my daughter.
She still has some to open (gone 7pm, Christmas day). Not because she had lots, but has spent time playing with any new ones, doing other activities like watching a film, playing games as a family, etc.
I've often seen that opening all at once leads to the deflation of it being over more quickly, or bored because there are no more surprises. Staggering does also allow them to appreciate gifts and me to note who gave her what, for sending thank you letters!

All this talk of church/walks/delayed present opening... can you not remember Christmas as a kid?

No child wants to go for a walk on christmas day, go to a dreary carol service or wait 3 hours to open presents. Not a single one.

All that shit just gets in the way of what children want to do, which is to play with new toys and stuff their faces with chocolate. It's one day a year, let them crack on!

I remember christmas as a kid - we'd have to wait to have breakfast, we'd have to wait for breakfast to be cleared up, we'd have to wait for coffee to be made and shortbread and elderly relatives to appear, and there would be this dragged out ritual that lasted hours and hours when I could fucking see my new megadrive game under the tree and I just wanted to play it. And then when we'd finally been permitted to actually enjoy ourselves off to church we go.

It's all so unnecessary and so utterly joyless.

Now, we have stockings when the kids wake up, sort out breakfast/showers etc while they play with that stuff and then it's downstairs and ripping in. Yeah, all the presents are open by 10am at the latest but so what? All the more time to play with them, watch films etc.

@Socksforxmas what did you eventually do?
Remember you can always tweek it next year

Nah. We teach delayed gratification every other day. Why do it on Christmas day too? Saying that we are quite conservative with presents, but kids always love what they get and are very grateful, we are not drowning in plastic tat every Christmas or bday. I was surprised, after indulging all morning, my son asked for his sweeties to be put away so he can enjoy a bit every day. We are more similar to your Christmas, we do have a walk, but after all the presents are open and they have played with some of them. My kids pretty much opened and played with every toy/set they got already.. My daughter made bath bombs and candles, they put together a couple of Lego sets and used a zombie kit. I wish they would have kept some unused to entertain themselves during the school holiday but hey ho...

We always did similar to your DH in my childhood and we do it that way with our DC. But then and now the DC are definitely allowed to play with presents! It doesn't have to be all one way or the other. We do stocking presents, breakfast, a couple more presents, a walk, a couple more presents, lunch, then all the rest of the presents, and the rest of the day/evening is for playing, relaxing, a family film, etc. Lots of drinks and plenty of food. I agree that spreading the presents out through the day is a brilliant format. Stops kids just ripping paper off everything at the crack of dawn, getting over stimulated and having bad moods and sulking because it's all over by breakfast. That just feels like a very loooong day. I love the way we do it and our DC do too. They even describe their perfect Xmas Day involving opening presents all day. Also means the person cooking doesn't miss out on seeing things being opened. You can relax with a large glass of something, watching everyone enjoying their surprises without feeling there's something that needs doing in the kitchen.

your DH is ridiculous. What a scrooge.

Each to their own - everyone has a different way of doing Christmas Day and fair play to all ways, but opening all of the presents before lunch - what time do you get up??!! We literally couldn’t open all of our presents in that space of time as there are soooooo many!! We get up, open stockings, get dressed, have breakfast and then start opening presents around 10am. We then stop at about 1pm to get dinner sorted, sit down at 3pm (ish), and then start again with presents around 5pm and finish probably around 7pm. Then it’s games, turkey sandwiches and more games until around midnight. Flipping heck Christmas must me so over and done with in some households - you plan for months and then it’s all over in a flash, how sad 😔

When do you go out on your new roller skates @villagelife77?

humblebrag

It is if you think Christmas is just opening presents @villagelife77 . That's just the start of the day for us and not the main event.

She's probably too busy clearing out last years stuff to find places for this year's stuff. To have time to reply on MN.

YANBU

Hope you recreated your Christmas reminds me a lot of how ours was and how we have Christmas now. Your husbands family sound a bit mean I personally think it cruel to have presents and not being allowed to play. Does he actually have happy memories of that... I think the walk be nice but everything apart from that sounds dreadful. Maybe his parents were absent a lot but even if they were it's still wrong. Children should come first always not the wants of adults. Hope you had a nice Christmas however you decided to do it.