When do you open presents?

[BrianMolkoismyPlacebo]

My kids get up and rush in to living room to check if santa's been.
Dh puts the fire on and we open presents.
They're all stacked randomly under the tree so we have to search for our own, which is fun as you have no idea what's your when you're looking at the pile.
Once presents are open dh plays with kids and I make breakfast.
At the end of the day, early evening we will open stockings.

I was watching peppa pig the other day and they didn't open presents until after dinner. How common is this? We don't eat until 3ish. Making dc wait until after seems cruel

Stockings straight away, then break for me and DH to get a cup of tea made, then back to the living room for 'main' present opining.

My children open stockings in our bed while DH and I have a brew.
Then we go down and open the big presents from Father Christmas, DH and I open our presents from each other then too. In an ideal world we would open the bigger presents after breakfast but my in-laws insist on visiting really early so we get them opened before they arrive.

After breakfast (or often during) the in-laws visit and we swap gifts with them.
If my family are visiting for dinner we open presents from each other after dinner. If not we open them when we see them.
Other presents from godparents and other family we saw before Christmas get opened on Boxing Day or sometimes the day after

Stockings in bed then tree presents as soon as I have a cuppa in my hand!

Stockings in bed when we wake.

Then special / nice breakfast, shower and dressed etc before main presents are opened under the tree. (About 10am)

Then we go over to my parents and will open presents from then (about 12)

Lunch about 1:30

After lunch presents we give each other (me and my brother to family) (about 3)

Final presents (from other family) after tea about 6pm.

So presents are opened throughout the whole day, interspersed with eating, drinking, playing games etc... we don't spend the whole day opening presents... we do do other things too, but we do spread it out over the whole day.

As kids we woke up to stockings at the bottom of our beds, we could open these in our rooms but tended to open them on mum and dads bed, after running in shouting 'he's beeeeeeen!!!!'

Then breakfast (bacon butty) then all sat in the lounge for main presents. Me and my brother used to sit under the tree passing presents out (and squishing them all).

I'm at my mum and dads for xmas this year and said the other day 'oh remember how excited we would be by our stockings?! Even though it was just fruit, sweets and new knickers! ' and she just smiled and said 'well see what santa brings you this year....'

She is sooooo doing me a stocking!! Excited!

At home, we go to Mass in the morning, followed by cooked breakfast about midday. Then we get out drinks & sweets to do the presents. No kids in our family. Dinner is usually about 5 or 6pm.
Me & DH did our presents on Christmas Eve last year, as we were going to his mother. We're having Christmas, just the two of us, in our own place this year, so we're starting our own new traditions.

We used to wait for my grandparents to arrive at our house, my parents always hosted. They'd be on the phone a few days beforehand asking what time should they arrive, mum would tease us and say "ooh maybe lunchtime?" just to watch our faces fall as we knew we wouldn't be opening anything until they were here! It was usually about 9am. Didn't usually have stockings. We'd have Bucks Fizz/orange juice and warm sausage rolls, then get going with the presents. Usually us children took it in turns to "be Santa" and hand out the presents to everyone. Sometimes we waited until everyone had all of theirs before opening, sometimes we got going straight away. I guess my grandparents must have dropped off their presents to us from them on Christmas Eve, because they'd all be there under the tree when we woke up on Christmas morning!

We're never in the same place at the same time for Christmas now we're grown up so there's no real tradition anymore, which is a bit sad.

All presents inc stockings the minute they wake up! I can't imagine telling my kids - "wow look at the presents - but let's wait til after breakfast or lunch!" That's like torture 😂 plus my kids wouldn't enjoy the rest of the morning - they'd just be wishing it away!

Our way, all Santa presents opened by 9am then four or so hours to play. Family presents eg grandparents, aunts, uncles etc are opened later when we go visit everyone so generally throughout the afternoon. They receive extended family gifts on Boxing Day. We spend a lot of the two days nipping from house to house (all local) and I love it!

Stockings hung outside bedroom door, opened on waking. Then downstairs where there is a pile of gifts for each person on the sofa/chairs. Presents are opened as fast or slow as you like, we also have pastries, tea and bucks fizz as we go. Tree presents are family presents and we open those last.

Stockings and one main present first thing, then the rest after lunch, usually around 2:30.

Everything from Santa is under the tree and opened as soon as DS wakes up. I say 'opened' but I don't wrap gifts so when he opens the door of the livingroom there is a massive reveal of everything. I set his toys up in a scene as if they are mid-play. The only things he doesn't see immediately are his stocking or toys I've hidden as part of a surprise reveal. So there is about 15 minutes of insanity when he sees everything and empties his stocking.

After that we have breakfast and he plays for a few hours. We go to my parents for dinner in the early afternoon and he gets more gifts there. At tea time we go to my grandmother's house, where he gets a gift from her and from each of my three uncles. So the gift giving is naturally spread throughout the day with no anti-climax, just one fun visit and gift exchanging after the other until the end of the day. It's the exact same as my childhood Christmases were, as we had dinner at my grandmother's and tea at her parents' house and I got gifts from the relatives I'd see in each house.

That Peppa episode always cracks me up. It's when she says 'oh goodie' in response to being told she must wait until after dinner to open her present. And people say she's a bratty kid, she's the most joyously disciplined 4 year old ever!

We don't open anything until after we have had breakfast and then we go at speed ds wants. He likes to look and play with what he has opened before opening more, something we encourage. I think some children rush into quickly and don't really look at what they have just opened. There is no rush, this year we are going to my in laws and I would hate to rush ds into opening presents and then taking him away from them so he will just open his Santa present and the presents the in-laws will have for him at theirs. It works for us.

In my DP's family, they always opened stockings in the morning and then the rest of their presents after dinner/in the evening. In my brother in Law's family (German) they open all of their presents right at the end of the day (albeit it, they celebrate the whole day on the 24th....).

We only do stockings, and we open them together first thing in the morning with a mug of hot chocolate. If we did 100s of gifts we would prob do it the same way.

Presents in piles for the people who they are for, each has their own colour paper so I don't need to waste resources on labels. We open first thing when kids are up, usually after I've sneaked down and made coffee. Presents from others fit under the tree and we do those last so that I can note who bought what for thank your later in the day.

I don't bother with stockings anymore as found they were just sweets or tat so gave them up bar for the pets.

Stockings by the bed. Presents between the ending of the Queens speech & Christmas dinner, normally served about 5:30

That's brilliant teal... I've not spent christmas with my mum simce I moved out. I'm tempted to go this year so I can get a stocking!

In Sweden where the big ticket is Christmas eve. Presents are opened in the evening after dinner. Kids swedish presents ie tomte (santa) farmor (MIL) and cousin. Christmas morning is stocking in the living room before we get up. Once we are up its DH reads out the English presents from Mum and Dad, Granny, UK relatives. Quite good as they are spread out over two days.

When I was a teen usually before Christmas Day .I would score the sellotape with a pin, carefully unfold the wrapping paper, have a peek and seal with another piece of sellotape over the original piece.

When I was old enough to get myself up, usually around 5am. My sister woke me up at 1.30am one year. Parents had gone to bed 30 minutes earlier. Our Mother made us go back to bed. From quite a young age our parents never saw us opening gifts. It was all done and toys played with before they got up.

As a 48 year old we now open presents before lunch. Our Father mumbles a thank you and then pisses off to the pub whilst our Mother slaves over a hot stove (her choice) whilst me and my sister play with her daughter's toys and Auntie winds her 6 yo niece up even more

first thing there is no way I could hold them back.

stocking then presents

however I do hold some back from us - smaller things ( FC brings all main presents and most presents there - I just buy some as back up in case he doesnt make it) - for the meal.

It stretches out time at the table more - we have small dc eager to clear off, and makes the table a bit more fun, so in between courses, bring out a gift.

In our family only the small stocking presents ever came from Father Christmas - everything else was from relatives. Stopped us/them asking for things we/they were never going to get - puppies, ponies, anything just too expensive or out of the question.

We would open some of the non FC presents after breakfast, the rest would wait till after dinner.

DD runs to the sitting room to get her stocking and Santa presents as soon as she wakes (well, usually after thundering through our room to say she's going down).

If we are at home, the rest of the presents are opened in the late afternoon - after we've been to mass, done the few visits to relatives living near us, and got the turkey in the oven and the stove lit and the drinks open (and nibbles cooked).

If we are visiting DPs, DPILs, we get a pile thrust at us as we arrive into the kitchen at DPILs (whether that's from a bedroom at bleary-eyed o'clock, or on arrival after mass in late morning). When we then get to DPs in the late afternoon, they are just about to or not long started the process there.

In both our own house and my DPs, someone hands out the presents individually to be opened, admired, thanks issued and then the next one gets handed out.

Last year, at ILs, presents were done after lunch in DBILs (next door) as they cooked and hosted. Each person got a bag or bundle of their gifts, and starting with the youngest, 1 person at a time opened everything they got, before moving on to the next oldest.

So every house has a different way of doing it!