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?

Yes. It was. My parents did their best but I was a kid and my parents were OAPs. It was just us. I lived in a "seen but not heard" kind of house. No siblings. It wasn't amazing but they did their best.

So a different type of Christmas was a real eye-opener. For me, that was better. For others, it's presents first thing and that's that. It's fine, do what works for you. Just don't hugely insult others because it's not your way.

To be honest neither way is going to be perfect to everyone. I personally never had stockings, so I think if I were to introduce them, they need to be distinctly different from the rest of the presents. Else what’s the point of having some things under the tree with a separate stocking for other gifts, if everything gets opened at once? I’m just thinking out loud though.

Personally as a vegetarian my Christmas will probably be quite unorthodox to some! So no judgement here.

Me either.

Absolutely. Depriving your child of a lovely bit of childhood magic because of your own ego…The narcissism of it!

Says who!! It was better for YOU.
It was definitely not best for the child sitting alone for hours on Christmas Day.
Words fail me.

Lol. I had the exact same experience with a boyfriend's family! It was so stiff and drawn out and woe betide anyone who opened a present when it wasn't their allocated moment 😂

How do you know the child had been up for hours?

But then, isn't the main difference the makeup of your family, rather than stretching out the present opening over the course of the day?

If you'd had relatives available to play with as a child, presumably having your new toys/games available would have been better than waiting to open them later?

@cardibach @magicalmrmistoffelees
Under the tree my dc probably have about 10 presents each. Half from me and half from granny, godparents etc. They won’t all be huge presents but they are all chosen with love and care. Especially when my dc were smaller they did find it overwhelming to open more than 2 or 3 presents at a time.

Stockings get opened with no rules, at their own pace etc and it’s utter joyful chaos.

Main presents are just slightly calmer. It’s also important to me that my dc are involved with giving presents to other people and they really LOVE seeing granny etc open presents they’ve helped to choose and wrap. It’s not super formal but we do enjoy opening presents together.

As pp have said, it’s ok for things to be done differently in different families but it’s not ok to sneer at different ways of doing Christmas presents.

Who's mentioned being jealous? We've only ever done stockings are from FC and everything else is from everyone else because that's all both DH and I have ever known.

The idea of all presents being from him never crossed either of our minds. I only found out it was a thing on here. Same as the FC delivers everything and things appear under the tree only on the night of Christmas Eve.

Does 4am really count as Christmas Day? Is anyone up with their kids at that time?

We only give FC credit for stockings and a couple of presents each. This is for a few of reasons:

• If DC were to ever find any presents in the house then we would be covered.

• It will hopefully help soften the blow that FC isn't real further down the line and make the transition a bit easier.

• It helps explain disparity in the standard and amount of gifts different children receive on Christmas as children get older.

I love this! Until this thread I didn't realise that opening gifts was a class indicator or that people judged each other for it. But then I'm from a council estate and i don't think I even know anyone who opens their presents in the afternoon!

My dad ‘put his foot down’ and insisted we unwrapped our main presents after dinner and I HATED IT and would never enforce this on my children. I also found I had to lie about it to other children as they said the only people who did that were stuck up posh people and I was incredibly embarrassed.

I prefer your husband's way. I don't like your way at all.

This is kind of my point. Different things work best for different families and that's okay!!! We're not cruel, mean, miserable if it's not the same as the way you do yours. Noone should be criticising and saying it's DEFINITELY unfair, taunting etc. It might have been for them, but not necessarily for every child.

I was a child, regardless of my family make up, and early present opening was not great.

Ds is a child and too much at once just results in a meltdown...early present opening definitely not best for him.

Dd is quite happy as we do it. And no, she's not just pretending- she has no filter and would definitely let us know.

It's okay to do things in different ways. People need to stop projecting their feelings / thoughts / imaginings / experiences onto all other children and slamming others as a result. THAT is unreasonable.

I don't know about the class angle but I wouldn't have said we were middle class as kids or now really.

No one's jealous, what a weird invention.

Personally I want my DC to feel the magic of Santa who works to bring something to children all over and for my DC to know that they have parents (and grandparents and other relatives) who love them so much and take so much pleasure in their happiness that we put time and effort into finding and buying things that will thrill them. I also want my DC to see the adults around them taking joy in and investing time in gift giving. And yes, adults are humans and it's lovely to be told thank you for some of the things we work hard at for our DC, I don't think there's anything wrong with that desire. I also simply see a lot of practical advantages to most gifts coming from us - I don't have to hide them all or do all the shopping in secret, there's less pressure for DC to keep believing, and it simplifies some things when we're doing part or all of the day with other kids in the family. There's absolutely zero reason it needs to be mutually exclusive/all or nothing - I can watch my DC carefully write letters to Santa and dance around at dawn on Christmas to find out what he brought and have all of those other things, so that's what we do.

It doesn't extend the excitement . It's just rubbish.

Op I'm with you. Both DH and I did it your way as kids and it's how we do things with our own children.

Santa brings stockings. Opened first thing.

All other presents are from family and are opened when we see them. Usually Christmas Day we open some before and sone after lunch but no hard rules eg bike might be opened earlier due to it being hard to hide

I don't understand how Santa can bring presents from say grandparents - how do the kids thank anyone??

If your DH has done things differently you'll have to compromise OP, maybe some presents first thing and some family ones later?

ok

This is the perfect time for you to work with your partner to create new traditions for your family.

At the moment it sounds as if you have decided that you should do a carbon copy of your Christmas growing up not considering any traditions that he would like to continue

We had to wait until after breakfast ( which didn't start until 9 and involved endless pots of bloody coffee, then clearing up , then more bloody faffing). Then presents were given out. You couldn't open them all at once though, oh no. Each person took a turn to open a present whilst everyone else looked at the person. The utter fear of having to do the appropriate level of ' delighted-with-my-gift face' was awful. It causes me stress even now when I have to open gifts.

Sorry, OP, it does sound utterly miserable!

We always had stockings first thing (no waking mum and dad until AT LEAST 6am!), then went downstairs and opened presents from Mum/Dad/family members not joining us for Christmas Day.

Then we opened the presents from family members joining us, when they arrived - but definitely before Christmas lunch. Means you can clear all the wrapping up and not have to pretend to be excited for your little ones while you’re slipping into a port-and-Stilton-induced post-Xmas-lunch food coma. Who wants to pretend to like a box of Brazil Nuts or a beige sweater while bloated and dying to put the telly on? 😂

Get that you want to preserve the magic of your childhood but your DH wants to do the same for his too - so maybe find a new way that’s different to both?

If my young dc had got up at 4am on any day of the year they'd be told its too early. Go back to bed. Although they'd usually get into my bed at that point and go back to sleep.

They wouldn't have been on their own for hours ffs.