AIBU to think my idea of Christmas Day isn’t miserable at all?

[Brandysauce]

DH and I have a three year old and, now they’re old enough to really set out “our” Christmas Day traditions, have been constantly disagreeing on the order of Christmas Day. I have extremely fond memories (as we all do) of the way I did it growing up and think it makes great sense on the day re. presents. This is my proposal:

Stocking from Father Christmas opened first thing in the morning, brought into parents’ room and ripped open in excitement. This will consist of at least one “really exciting” present that will entertain them all morning.

Later on, the family all convene for Christmas Dinner which can stretch on for a while, all the family are there including cousins.

After lunch, the whole family moves to the living room by the Christmas tree and then the main present opening begins, taking in turns.

My DH says this is a “miserable” way of doing Christmas and that we should let DC open all presents in the morning. AIBU to want to put my foot down on this?

It is interesting the language and air of superiority that the 'waiters' have. 'Tearing' or 'ripping' into the presents first thing as opposed to...gently opening them and folding the paper up if you do it after lunch??

such a good point. Same tone as when fat people are described as eating, always scoffing rather than delicately nibbling, or you know, just eating.

We do the same as you OP. Stockings first thing then we wait until later for the gifts around the tree. Usually after lunch but if it’s just the 4 of us we may do a few a bit sooner.

I grew up with your way and it was lovely. We did get heaps and heaps from Father Christmas though, so that kept us going all morning, then lunch around 1/2 followed by the excitement of all the presents under the tree from relatives and friends and one big one from parents. Everyone had to open one at a time so my mum could write down what we needed to write in thank you cards. It was exciting knowing we had another round of gifts to do.

I'd love to do that with my DD now but I'm a single mum and we don't get any family presents, bar one or two.

Your way has a lot of potential for problems.

Firstly you have to always buy the same number of gifts for your kids when realistically one child may have fewer gifts on year because they have an expensive gift eg a games console. Buying cheap gifts to bump up the number of gifts is pretty tacky.

Plus you’ve got the problem of having to match or reducing your gift budget so the kids all get equal number of value of gifts. It’s going to be crappy if one family spends or buys double and the children are left watching their cousins open “better”or more gifts. Opening gifts before family arrives means this awkward problems like this doesn’t happen.

Personally I would have the kids open gifts from visiting family after Christmas dinner. Do you want to be “guarding “ the tree all day and dealing with potential nagging from the kids?

The other thing is that family with older kids probably have their routines already. Are you going to make them sit through your very formal present opening routine ? That’s pretty mean and very boring for everyone. If any visiting family are very judgy, be prepared for them to have opinions on what you’ve bought - too many books, second hand, too much plastic …

In my family stockings when you wake up then gifts after breakfast. The whole month has been a long wait for this day so waiting until I have had my coffee and breakfast is as fair to everyone as possible.

Yes, all this mention of 'rushing downstairs' like it's essential to the day. The stockings are already in their rooms

@givemushypeasachance It spreads out the excitement. If you open everything in one go first thing, isn't it likely the most exciting big present is fixated on and everything else cast aside? If you spread it out across the day you get to enjoy your stocking presents, and then you get the fun of more present opening later. I'd find it a bit odd having nothing in particular to do after lunch if we'd done all the presents hours ago!

Not in my experience. Everything gets opened and you have a little look (this did take a long time, we weren't 'tearing' into the paper as PPs seem to presume...), then later you can take your time and look through everything at your leisure. Extended family arrived around 1pm, dinner was at 3.30pm (after the queen!), and went on till about 6.30. Then cheeseboard, chats and board games. Even as a very young child opening the presents wasn't the main part of the day, it was playing with my presents with family later.

Father Christmas presents in the morning. Family presents spread throughout the day.

Can you compromise?

we open Santa/parent presents in the am. Any family we are seeing later in the day/week their gifts stay under the tree and are opened when they get there.

the issue I see with waiting for the bulk of the presents until family get there - are cousins expected to bring all their non stocking presents with them to open?

if not isn’t it just your child opening all their presents while everyone else watches? With a token gift for them?

if they do bring their gifts (why on earth would they?) then how do you address any inequality? I have two kids and a smaller budget- mine get a lot of practical stuff like new bedsheets to bulk things out. My brother is older, has a much younger get only child, and they get an amazing amount of really fun stuff. It would be very unequal should they all be opening non stocking gifts together.

so we do stockings and main gifts in the am, then family gifts with family later.

Growing up, we did it your way. Presents from Santa in the morning and then all other presents after lunch. We also used to open them one at a time with everyone watching. I used to enjoy that as a kid but as an adult now I see it was just part of my DM's need to be rigidly in control the whole day.

When I first went to my new DH's for Christmas I was horrified- at some seemingly random time (usually when my MIL is trying to start serving) we gather round the tree and everyone has presents chucked at them. Everything gets ripped open, people are shouting 'thanks' over each other and then everyone sits for lunch.

Any toys/games etc are then set up after lunch.

Since we've been married we do a compromise- all presents from Santa and anything under the tree opened in the morning, then when we see other relatives later they get their presents and DC get to open anything they bring when they arrive.

It's a bit more relaxed than my parents way of doing it.

I'm with OP as that's the way we do things in our family. I love to see the DGC faces when they open our gifts and would miss out on that if they opened everything first thing in the morning. It also spreads out the excitement so there's not a huge anticlimax by 7am!

Reading through the replies something really struck me, do some people really pretend that all the presents / gifts from parents are from Santa?? I thought Santa just brought the stocking gifts!

Dad checks if he’s been, then it’s game on! Your way is not for us.

I think you can both surely work things out-dictating what to do isn’t the way forward. Your dh has a point, but so do you! We did stocking first thing but then opened main presents after breakfast. Could she open some from you first thing and then wider family after lunch?

Just wondering how those people who leave all the presents for their child (bar stocking) til after the guests have arrive would feel if their child was the one doing the visiting, and they just had one or two presents from Grandparents/Aunties and Uncles to open, while their cousins had loads more as they were also opening parent presents and friend presents at the same time too? They'd be happy to let their child sit and watch their cousins opening all the biggest and best presents?

Or do people really transport wrapped up bikes/scooters/trampolines/all the various gifts from friends, godparents etc along to someone else's house to open? Surely that's just not possible both in terms of car space if multiple big items or multiple children, and in terms of space in the hosting family's house? And given different families budgets, surely it must be hard to manage so that no child feels hard done by?

We do it your way, but we go to church in the morning, so we wouldn't have time for presents before then.

When they were little, we put the stockings on the children's beds after they had gone to sleep. They opened their stockings when they woke up, to begin with they came to our bed to do it, now they are older (19,17 and 15 and yes they still have stockings) they open them together. Then to church for a short service, lunch at 1sh with the whole family together at my parents. After lunch, we all muck in to clean up, then sit together and open the main presents.

It spreads the presents out and they got time to enjoy what they were opening, without the rest to the next thing.

I might be wrong, but I assume even the early openers wouldn't open grandparent gifts without them being there (assuming they were visiting over Christmas). Surely the grandparents would just bring them with them?

@AllTheChaos Ours did! I never questioned it 😂child logic. I also don't remember comparing gifts with friends etc though. If I was to have a child I'd minimise the number of Santa gifts for that reason, so it didn't seem unfair for those who got less (or more).

They do. And some others have Father Christmas deliver them all even if they aren't saying they are from FC.

I only found out about both these ways of doing it on here a few years ago. For us it was always presents under the tree from friends and family whenever they arrived so sometime mid-December usually. Stockings only from FC hung up at end of bed on Christmas Eve and filled overnight.

If we were seeing family on the 27th or 28th or something we would exchange presents then.

Surely the waiting and build up and patience takes place before Christmas Day? Why does this still have to be dragged out on Christmas Day too?

Santa brings everything except the main present in our house.

Under the tree presents are from friends and wider family. But piles of presents are from Santa.

Absolutely.

When I spent my first Xmas with my boyfriend's (at the time) family it all felt different and not Christmassy. They did it completely differently to how we'd done it in my own family. I was mature enough to recognise that it was just as Christmassy to them because they were following their own traditions. It was lovely.

When we had our own family we took elements from each of our families and began our own traditions.

I'm glad growing up we opened our gifts early. Seeing all our neighbours children playing out on their new bikes on Christmas Day, while I had to wait, would have spoiled Christmas I think.
We do stockings first, upstairs on our bed while we have a brew, then downstairs to open presents, with breakfast eaten during this time.
Then after Christmas dinner it's games followed by relaxing.
Presets from extended family swapped as they arrived, and opened then.
Do they not get to play with or use their gifts until boxing day?

I think it totally depends how your child's copes, and isn't about you or DH.

If your 3 year old is desperate to open everything, getting angsty and upset, then you would be VU to make him wait.

If he's fairly relaxed and doesn't mind, then it's fine.

Why spoil his day - and everyone else's?

IME loads of toys is very overwhelming for younger DC however so they often don't mind spacing it out.

I suggest not putting presents under the tree until the last minute.

I don't get the angst about cousins getting more etc either. SIL has always done more than us so some years yes my DC have had less to open than their cousins. I don't think they're bothered. DH gets a bit competitive about it and has upped our amount this year.

I voted yabu as you said about putting your foot down, but reading this I don't think you are with the plan for your day.
We never did it this way, presents were always opened in the morning, but if we actually had our dinner at lunch time, I think this would have been a much better way of doing things.
As it is, the kids have their stockings from Santa which kept them busy until breakfast. We'd eat that and then open presents from under the tree. They'd play with their new things whilst we got on with dinner around 4pm.
Boxing Day is usually at family so they'd have more to open then.
I do think your way sounds nice, but there needs to be a compromise so maybe let them open one from under the tree before lunch?

@Tarraleah , oh dear! Where have I said that children are ‘brats’?
In my opinion gratitude is one of the most valuable qualities we can instil in our children. It will stand them in good stead all their lives and make them infinitely more pleasant people. Neither my own children nor my grandchildren miss out on magic, I can’t understand why you would think they would? 🤷🏼‍♀️