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?

Well I liked it as a child, my kids are 14 and 16 now and they generally do the handing out presents and are busy rummaging around and working out who gets what next. And there are usually a lot more kids presents than adult ones! No need to be quite so extreme - plenty of different ways of doing things that are all enjoyable!

Sorry OP but that sounds horrible. The main excitement for a child is waking up on Christmas morning and being able to open presents. I would have hated your version as a child and would never inflict it on children now.

To be honest our current idea of turn-taking doesn’t sound too dissimilar to yours - it’s quite rapid but not a free-for-all,

Growing up it was quite a sedate thing which was very much one at a time - didn’t have any extended family so only had presents from parents so it wasn’t as though we had loads of presents to get through.

I remember my mum hating it when she spent Christmas with us as by her standards we were ripping through presents with abandon - I felt like saying “well if you think this is bad you should see how other people do it”

I honestly enjoyed the turn taking when I was a child - it’s like a game of pass the parcel, thr anticipation is part of the enjoyment. Feeling a bit giddy with excitement while waiting for you next turn.

i’m also the kind of person who savours the Christmas chocolate selection box one at a time over days if not weeks. I just like to draw out enjoyable things rather than binge them.

I would assume the parents of ND children do them the favour of limiting gifts, leaving presents unwrapped so there's less visual stimulus in the shape of gaudy wrapping paper, and less audio stimulus in the shape of parents and family members all saying Ooooohhh! and Ahhhhhhh! and Wowwww! And none of the paper ripping sounds either.

I would also surmise that parents of ND children wouldn't inflict more than one present opening interlude on them on Christmas Day.

Surely one brief discovery of a limited number of unwrapped presents first thing would be far preferable to numerous performances of ripping paper off with an audience all gasping with excitement?

What's with all the gasping and chorusing and performances? Surely my family is not the only one where people just sit and drink coffee or eat some fudge or play with the last gift opened or chat with grandpa at normal volume while gifts are opened in round robin?

I swear everyone in this thread seems convinced that the only two options available for gift opening are acting like it's a game of hungry hungry hippos at dawn or pretending everyone's in the most uncomfortable slow-motion pantomime ever.

I wouldn't expect toddlers to have any real idea of Christmas. They're people who live in the moment, and anticipating Christmas/ the passage of time (Advent calendars, etc) are meaningless to them.

@Brandysauce

"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."

Surely those meeting for Christmas Dinner bring gifts to exchange with each other, but not those they share a home with, on the day.
If it's done as you propose, your son will have far more presents than anyone else to open after lunch. Those being presents from you and your husband, presents from people that you don't share Christmas Day with and family members that you do share the day with.
Why would anyone, apart from you and your husband, want to watch your son open ALL of his presents? The younger members of the family are probably going to have forgotten the presents they opened at home and feel resentful and bored. Everyone else will just be bored. Really bored.
Or do you expect everyone or even just the younger ones, to bring all their main presents from home, to open after dinner? Taking it in turns of course. That would be extremely boring and really rather strange.

Only on a British site would the notion of class be dragged into this.

The language used there is loaded with value judgement - "mindlessly tearing through enormous piles of gifts first thing in the morning...crass and consumerist..."

It's every bit as consumerist to make children enjoy different sets of gifts at appointed intervals all day, gifts that you, a consumer, have bought for them just because that's what everyone does now at Christmas.

Apparently it's really, really important to make the children as excited as possible all day long.

I can't think of a more hellish way to spend the day.

@mathanxiety I have no clue what you're talking about

straw men, straw men everywhere, and not a middleground's been seen...

We go with your way- that is what happened when I was a child. We didn't have a specific discussion to work out how things would happen, it just happened naturally.

We had our stockings in our rooms, which we opened when we woke up. Before/after breakfast we had presents from our parents and some of the presents from other family that were under the tree. The presents were spread out over the day instead of being opened all at once. It meant we enjoyed and appreciated what we were opening instead of opening and just moving on to the next. If we saw family later in the day, we had their presents when we met. It was exciting knowing we still had more presents to open.

Our daughter opened her stocking and our presents first, then presents under the tree - some before breakfast some after breakfast. Presents from grandparents were opened when we visited them during the day.

Now she is a teenager we all have a lie in and open presents while having breakfast.

That isn't what the OP wanted to do - stockings upon waking and everything else after Xmas dinner.

It IS controlling to force a child to wait for several hours to
open their main and much awaited Christmas gifts!

Lets call it out for what it is.

It seems you are forgetting (assuming they are not entirely spoilt) that they have been waiting for a minimum of a month already - probably much longer in this house possibly six months or longer.

To force them to look on at the gifts under the tree, with some odd idea to practice the virtues of restraint on the most magical day of the year for children, it really is a pointless exercise in controlling behaviour and ruins all of the excitement.

Well we did it your way OP when I was growing up and I loved it. I had enough presents in my stocking to keep me busy all morning and I remember even as a young child not wanting to open the others until later as I didn't want the excitement of having something to open to end. One year I think I even told my parents I would leave some tree presents to the next day. I always felt a bit sad when there was nothing left under the tree. I still like delayed gratification as an adult.

I am with you on this OP, I also stretch out the present opening after the stocking from Santa in the morning. Otherwise they are all opened in a flurry with little attention paid to each gift. And inevitably the child asks if there are any more presents later on!

We watch Muppet's Christmas Carol after lunch 😄

In our family Santa fills the stockings. Any early risers get to open their stocking. But our stockings contain cheaper usually food items.

Then because I have three children close in age there are usually lots of duplicate items and I like to avoid one child being upset because their sister has got a my little pony stable and they don't because they haven't opened it yet! So we do present rounds which I slow down or speed up depending on mood.

They do wake up and open presents! Stocking presents. If your stocking contains a satsuma, a walnut and a new French dictionary I can see how a child might be a bit hard done by. If your stocking has lots of small but great stuff, it’s brilliant!

Stockings are nowhere near as exciting as main presents! 🎁 let’s be real

I have worked hard to arrange the Christmas rituals. If my husband thinks it is unreasonable, let him arrange it next year. Christmas arrangements are really complicated.

Every year my children look forward to Christmas and I am already anxious about how to arrange it.

Perhaps Christmas activities could be rotated and the person who worked hard to organize everything could decide these.

We have always done the same. Santa presents in the morning. Family presents after lunch. Has not scarred DD for life!!!

Everyone I know opens all the gifts when they wake up. Mine would have hated waiting until the afternoon, so i’m with your DH here.