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?

Completely agree

Definitely all Santa presents in the morning but I could see opening family presents after Xmas extending the fun 9f the day

I don't want to put down the way you do things but making little kids wait seems almost cruel to be honest, they are excited and don't have the impulse control or sense of time adults do. It feels a very 'adult oriented' way of doing it.

We do the exact opposite, we open wrapped presents first thing and stockings last (before bed on Christmas day) but if anyone tried to 'put their foot down' on me I would tell them where to shove it.

Christmas is about making NEW traditions... Me and DH never 'disagreed' over Christmas but we didn't have stockings, wrapped presents from each other under the tree or Santa sacks as kids (here all presents came from Santa and where unwraped and set up ready to play/laid out on sofa). We have added those new things in to make our own unique traditions.

I've heard
Presents all open before lunch = working class.
Present spread out over the day = middle class.
Before now.

I've no idea if it's true or not.

This all sounds very formal and structured.

As a child we always had to have people taking it in turns to open a present at a time with everyone else watching and I hated it. It made me feel uncomfortable having everyone watching each other, like a performance. It felt very staged.

I also hated that people would be taking photos during the opening.

I much prefer the chilled, unstructured everyone opening at the same time. Presents after breakfast too before the whole family arrives.

This is one of those threads whereby people post their versions of events, and people are horrified that other people find different methods more than acceptable (to the point where they’ve almost been accused of being abusive!).

We all know that's what children look forward to most. They might enjoy being with family.and chilling or going for a family walk too but they all like presents.

Our house rule was that everyone needed to be present for any unwrapping - which meant that it slowed it down as someone was always needed in the kitchen for something

My DC are very young currently so things may change, but I did this as a child too as did my DH and his family. Generally the adults open presents first (as there’s less of them). I always put a lot of effort into presents for others as a child and liked to see my parents opening their gifts, I want to instill that in my children so Christmas isn’t just about receiving. It would feel like something would be lost to just open everything in a frenzy, not really paying attention to one thing before moving onto the next. Different things work for different families! We also do stockings and a walk on Christmas Day too, which is apparently boring.

Even worse than waiting until after dinner.

What’s even more worse: We don’t even have a queen anymore so how many years are the kids going to wait until a potential queen does her speech?

We always did stockings first thing
Then presents when everyone was dressed and had a bit of breakfast
We saved some presents,mainly ones from relatives as under the tree presents which we open in the afternoon or after the meal .
Some years we saved a present for boxing day and one for new years day ..
Just kept them back ,as an extra suprise

i always used to think, if you open all your presents by 10am or whatever what do you then do all day?!

emm... play with all their new toys.

What do you do if you DON'T open them?

The presents is literally what makes Christmas different than any other Sunday. Literally from church to Sunday roast dinner to visiting family what, do you do on Christmas day other than presents that isn't a standard any and every Sunday style activity.

I've always done it your way and it's great. I really don't understand doing all presents first thing... It's nice to have more things to look forward to after the meal and to space things out a bit

Huge disagree!

Not in my experience.

Fascinating to read all the different ways people do things on Christmas day.
It being turned into a class issue is predictable I guess 🫠
We never had stockings, how's that for child abuse...

After lunch the kids play with their gifts?

We used to have stockings opened early (when we were young), 'big presents' at 11.00 and after the Queen's speech, the tree presents.

I’ve also never once, as a child or adult, watched the Queen’s/King’s speech 😮

I don't think it's miserable but it's not how most people do it. Fine if you and your husband agree but if not you will need a compromise. Personally we have stockings first thing then people get properly up and dressed have showers and breakfast etc and then do the presents around the tree. Then a long lunch. After lunch people watch Christmas things on the tv or play family board games. Or do things like try on their new jumpers etc. Or if it's still light then a walk after lunch is nice.

Watch TV, play board games, go for a walk, have a snooze etc etc, I don't know how anyone can restrain kids for that long when they're so excited

Yabu!
The whole thing for kids is about waking up to open presents!!

Not reasonable for small kids to wait.

We moved to opening after lunch when i was a teen and couldn't be prised out of bed!!

Give it another 10 or 11 years, then you can do it your way!!

Well just let them open the presents the second they're wrapped if it's wrong to make them wait.
Children can wait, it's seems to be the adults who want to get it over and done with. If children are used to opening presents after lunch they see it as normal. If they are used to opening them in the morning it's normal. Children don't complain about normal.
Anyway as I said we compromised, only way to keep everyone happy.

We’re very much MC as a family but love love love Xmas morning - stockings can be opened by dcs when they wake up.

Then they wake us up we all go downstairs (not before 8!) and look at the pile under the tree. Feed the dog, put coffee on and sit on the floor in the living room. Presents are opened (and admired 😂) one at the time. The person who opened a present ‘blind picks’ the next one and hands it to the receiver. Repeat until all are done. Then breakfast.

It’s as much fun for us as it is for them (now teens) and I can’t imagine having to wait for presents to be opened until after lunch.

However, if extended family is coming over, they bring their presents with them, so those will be opened later (or Boxing Day / whenever we seen them)

Both my parents were nurses and one always worked Xmas day early shift while the other had the day off. We had our Xmas day like yours, Op. Stockings in the morning in bed all together before the working parent left and then Xmas movies and visiting friends or family, board games etc during the morning (and prodding the gifts under the tree) then Xmas dinner when parent got home and then opened presents together late afternoon and I have VERY fond memories of it. Id like to do it with my family but DP is of the 'rip all open in the morning' camp and so we do that. Plus we have his DS half of Xmas so it doesn't work logistically to wait til late afternoon. I do compromise though and have a small velvet sack each for my DC and they have them in the afternoon with a couple of small gifts and one much wanted one. It makes me happy to do it that way and spreads the day out