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?

Ours all go under the tree on Christmas Eve after the kids are in bed, even though only stockings are from Father Christmas. Partly to stop the greedy Labrador from rummaging through for edible stuff, partly to stop the autistic youngest child from poking them, and partly because our living room isn’t big enough to have all the presents for 3 children out on display for a prolonged period.

That was always my method. We didn’t really overthink the logistics or go into detail but the general consensus was the stocking was from Santa but he dropped off all the other gifts at the same time.

When I was young it went:
Early morning - open stocking presents (in our bedrooms)
Breakfast at 9.30 ish.
Complete clear-up after brekky.
Main presents at around 11am.
Dinner at about lunchtime 1pm onwards
Buffet at around 7pm
Small presents tucked inside the Xmas tree after buffet.

This kept the day exciting. I don't remember a single bit of resentment from myself or my sisters. We were just excited about the whole day, not just about tearing into piles of gifts as soon as we woke up.

Personally I think it's miserable as I cannot imagine making children wait for their gifts until after dinner - what's the point? They're excited and that excitement is what makes Christmas with children, doesn't make sense to me to put present opening off until later in the day!

I grew up knowing a lot of posh people and they all opened gifts in the morning.

The whole waiting until after lunch thing is for people who are desperately trying to be middle class. 😂

Or in our case vaguely noticing them for a few days as they're already there but not actually taking any interest in them.

They get excited when it's actually a bit later in the day and we start opening but not particularly beforehand and have never asked to open anything other than stockings before breakfast.

We haven't actually decided what we'll do about them this year. First time we've ever been at home in the morning but going somewhere else later so don't know if we will open some here after breakfast and take some with us or just take everything to PIL.

I don't think it's that big a deal when it happens.

And yet all three of our boys - who were all excited for Christmas - were perfectly happy having stocking presents in the morning, and the rest after lunch. Our Christmases were very happy indeed - and I can promise you we would have known if one of the boys was just pretending to be happy - they aren't that good at acting!

And I didn't feel I was being 'controlled' or made unhappy at all, when that was the pattern throughout my childhood.

I still cannot understand why people are feeling the need to be unpleasant and abusive about the different ways people do this. Why is it so hard to understand and accept that different families can do things differently, and this doesn't make them controlling, cruel, abusive (for expecting kids to wait until after lunch) or materialistically 'ripping through a mound of presents at the crack of dawn' in a 'crazed frenzy' for doing it all first thing?

It is perfectly possible to be happy about your choice without having to trash someone else's different choice.

Agreed. My husband and his family are very upper middle class and they all open their presents in the morning.

My favourite part of Christmas is when my DD runs down stairs and sees all the presents that have magically appeared under the tree and the special sack of presents from Santa - its priceless! She thinks I and family send presents to Santa and he then delivers them, the presents from Santa are in the special sack. My EXH's family did it your way when he was a kid and he hated it - still talks about how horrible it was to this day.

I always make sure there is an activity book or similar and enough snacks to cover her for a while in my daughter's stocking because I'd rather not be woken up at 4am by an excited child 😂

My parents did the same and my brother and I would have a couple of hours opening our stockings together, reading a magazine or doing a craft activity, and eating chocolate, marzipan and nuts before my parents woke up.

How far do you extend this? Isn’t it “controlling” to expect children to wait for the arbitrary date of December 25th instead of giving them their gifts at the point you buy them?

My Instagram is full of posts by parents of under 2 year olds who have somehow found their presents so have had to have them already. I mean, if you can't hide presents from tiny tots, good luck when they are old enough to actively hunt for them!

Again with the judgemental language - ‘tearing’. You did pretty much what everyone is saying - stockings, but if a break, tree presents (no ‘frenzy’) then lunch. That’s not what the OP is suggesting.

Maybe. But I HAVE seen this kind of behavior many times in the past. Thankfully not with my children.

Yes I've witnessed it myself too and it really was "tearing" through the presents, children just single-mindedly hunting out and ripping open their own gifts with no thought to anyone else or any real appreciation of what they had been given. I honestly wanted to cry.

Obviously there's extremes at either end and I don't think most people are at either extreme.

The correct way is to carefully and calmly open each gift, in the manner of an actor in an induction video demonstrating the fire drill procedure in a large office, without ripping the eco-friendly paper, and hand it to Mother to iron for next year whilst gasping in joy at your organic wooden educational toy in shades of beige and oatmeal.

I have also seen excited children on Christmas morning and we will not have it here, I tell you, it will not be tolerated.

Does the frenzy only happen if it's in the morning though? A real trend on this thread of any morning present opening being described as a ripping, tearing frenzy of presents but somehow after lunch that's not the case

I have also seen excited children on Christmas morning and we will not have it here, I tell you, it will not be tolerated.

Quite right too. Street urchins get excited. Excited children are not top drawer.

No-one is saying that children can't be excited, you can take turns to open gifts and still be excited.

I think the mass simultaneous present opening is really disrespectful to the gift buyer. You don't need lots of performative ooohing and aaahing but if the gift buyer is in the room they at least deserve acknowledgement that they've bought the gift. And if they're not, you need to know who bought what so they can be thanked afterwards.

When I was with my partner's family at a present opening frenzy I'd carefully researched the gifts I'd bought for the children and I didn't even see them open them despite being in the room because it was just chaos.

Which sounds disorganised @RaisinFlapjack - but it’s nothing to do with whether presents are opened before or after lunch, surely?

@MrsSunshine2b - my mum didn’t iron the wrapping paper, but we did have to unwrap things carefully, so she could fold up the paper to be reused the next year. Weirdly, although it sounds a bit miserable to me now, at the time it was normal, and didn’t take away from the fun of Christmas (or birthdays).

There's two bits to this - before vs after lunch and turn-taking vs all-at-once.

I'm not that bothered about the timing of it, I think that's more a factor of what else people do on Xmas day. But turn-taking is the hill I'll die on.

Depends on how extreme that is. There’s a happy medium between all dive in and everyone watch every single present.

Yes a lot of things people deem as a class indicator are actually just showing that they are trying to look higher than they are and those “above” actually often do things much like those classed as lower down.

Bit like brands. I couldn’t imagine wanting to go out with Chanel or D&G plastered all over my dress or wellie boots to highlight it cost a lot of money but you get a certain class section of society that use it to show they can afford it and are better than. The truly posh and rich are mostly wearing a top that could pass as primark or cost thousands you don’t know unless you know because it’s not written all over with symbols or tags.

Interesting. I had the open all Santa presents in the morning Christmases as a child and the afternoons were fun because of playing with toys, watching movies together, family coming over (or going there), seeing aunts and uncles, playing with cousins, playing games together etc. We always did dinner about 3pm though so after dinner would have been very late. After opening everything first thing we still enjoyed the rest of the day which had nothing to do with presents. Don’t think there’s a right or wrong way.

My favourite childhood memory is walking up really early with my siblings and opening all of my gifts. Parents would come down when they heard us. I can’t imagine being forced to wait. Honestly, I’d find that difficult to do now as an adult!