Does anyone else's DC not open their tree presents until 4pm or later?

[nappyaddict]

DS opens his stocking first thing in the morning, then his Santa present when we have got back from the Church and he plays with it whilst lunch is being prepared. Then we eat a late lunch and we all sit down to open tree presents after lunch.

I still have a few presents left for DS as there were too many for him to cope with all at once. We are having one every few days at the moment. He is only 18mo though.

If you had suggested the above routine to me as a child I would have phoned Childline to complain about you

Whatever works for your family though, it seems every family has their own unshakeable routines for Christmas, birthdays etc!

Our present-opening didn't happen until about 4pm this year but it wasn't entirely deliberate!

Stocking presents (from FC) were opened as soon as DD1 woke up at about 8am. She came to show them to us, we got DD2 up and helped her open hers. Breakfast was cooked and eaten before we went to church. After church both girls chose a present from under the tree to open, played with those for a while then went to the park. On returning from the park we had lunch, then sat down to watch Shrek and the Gruffalo. It was only after that finished that DD1 mentioned opening the presents and so we did.

presents always waited until after the queens speech when I was little (in the 70's) but that was at my nans and one of the reasons why we stopped going there I think.

about 4pm to 5pm for us, after lunch.
We were with the ILs and that's the way they like it. At our house we do presents at about 12pm with a glass of champagne.

It is often like that with us too. They open their stockings first thing, then breakfast, then dressed. Then we might open gifts under the tree if they are not engrossed in the loot from Santa.
We go to my parents around lunchtime, eat lunch and then they open gifts from family there. We generally head home around 7 so if gifts are not opened we will leave them for boxing day.

It can be embarrassing when my dh's family phone and we haven't opened their gifts to us yet. They open everything in a frenzy first thing, before breakfast and that is the way they like it.

I think young kids can get a bit overwhelmed though if they open it all in one go. Mine get into something they open early on and I don't like to discourage them from that.
I think every family has its own traditions - there is not right or wrong way to do it. The problems only arise when two very different traditions collide.

We did stockings/santa first thing, grandparents (only have one lot) and one of the uncle/aunties straight after church. The rest that was under the tree after food so 4ish and finished with the ones I'd snaffled away (about another 4 each) on Boxing Day. It really works for us to spread it out.

We also open one the night before. I did not mean this to be a sacred tradition but last year a good friend bought my brood jammies (I don't do the new jammies on 24/12 thing) so we opened them. This year they remembered that they'd got to open one at bathtime so there we go, we'll continue that! Thankfully same friend had got them character hot water bottles this year (I'd been with her when she bought them) so we opened these and they all went to bed with something to snuggle!

Similar timing to you.just stocking in morning. It worked fine . morning was taken up with church, pub and a stop at snow covered play ground, then late lunch, washing up, cup of tea and presents follow.

DS2 got off to a early start opening his stocking at 3am.

The other DC were more civilised at 8am.

Then their 'big' presents once DH and I were up.

Family presents were dished out after 'lunch' at about 5pm.

I'm not 100% clear where presents come from tbh - Santa was pretty generous this year with DVDs and Wii games, so DH and I took credit for the main presents under the tree.