Present opening Etiquette!!

[Jemimafuckinpuddleduck]

I love hearing about people’s Christmas traditions, plans and ways, plus we are going to have rethink ours as have the in-laws visiting this year (whole other thread in itself!!) so I thought I would ask how your present opening works?

Do you get dressed beforehand , let the kids crack on while you prep dinner, drag it out throughout the day? Are your kids done in 10 minutes flat or like us have little surprises and mystery parcels under the tree?

We start by building the suspense with DH going down stairs and makig sure the Prosecco is in the fridge checking “he’s been”, Christmas tree light are on, candles are lit and carols are playing, my folks used to do the exact same for me and I’m sure it still feels like the same eternity!! 😬

Stockings are done with a glass of fizz in hand, fresh orange for the girls, even though I know exactly what’s inside, I love watching them open everything, stockings are a mixture of wrapped and unwrapped and again remember the feeling well of putting the hand in and not knowing what you were going to get.

More fizz poured and onto Santa piles/sacks and this is where I’m worried with how it’s going to go down with MIL Our 3 girls take it in turns of opening a present each, we have done this for a good few years now and it’s worked really well as everybody gets to see what everyone else is getting it also drags out what for us is always a really thoughtful and costly process of picking lovely gifts, I would hate to go back to that part being over and done with in 2 minutes flat. In-laws think all kids should be a whirl wind of wrapping paper and excitement getting stuck in but hopefully she will just look on and say nothing!!

Break for breakfast, party dresses on for the girls, bath for me to get a break and hopefully use some lovely new bubble bath and then regroup for family presents with some nibbles and more fizz...

Lastly we always hold back one present for the girls each for the table, sometimes it’s a forgotten Santa one, sometimes it’s from us but it has over the years evolved to be one of their main presents, this year the big 2 are getting fitbits and youngest a Disney Garmin tracker.

We have a rule when grandparents are involved that not every Lego set, Barbie box or paint pallet has to be opened on the day, the little 2 will get a few LOL dolls and I’m sure there will be no holding them back with them but other than that I tend to stick to a one present opened rule! This year there is definitely a reduced amount of toys so hopefully I won’t find that part as stressful!

Love to hear how everyone else’s day works?

Kids can open stockings whenever they wake up. Quite sweetly they always seem to end up going to eachother and opening them together, even teen DS1 still joins in. 7:30 they can come and poke me and DH if we aren't already up, we have breakfast together then into living room for presents. MIL phones around 8 to ask 'has he been?' and even though all 3 DC are non-believers this year, it's just tradition. They'll still scramble for the phone Take it in turns opening presents, when they were younger we used to let them all pile in but it was a bit hectic, now all 3 are older (16, 11, 9) they're calm enough to take turns!

We always had running down (whenever the first woke and then woke the rest) for the stockings and anything large left beside them. Getting dressed and go to 8.30am mass, then home for a fry (while DF went "into the office" for "an hour"), before clearing up ready for the neighbours and a few friends of DPs calling for drinks and nibbles from noon. They'd leave about 3pm, we'd tidy up again and get organized for later (turkey into oven, fires re-stoked, etc), then all go into the sitting room to open presents. DM would hand them out one at a time, and it took a couple of hours. Then we'd help finish the meal prep, eat, clear up again, and tehn more or less fall into bed.

DPILs had a different way - you'd be handed your pile as soon as you appeared in the morning, with everything on it, and quite possibly everything else already opened if you were last awake. No ceremony to it at all. Usually someone was doing something with veg prep, someone else making some breakfast, a child crying about something, all at the same time as you trying to open your second eye and open your presents at the same time (and make suitable "oh, I just love it!" noises!).

In our house, we do something similar to my house growing up. We don't have visitors in on Christmas Day, but we have a couple of calls to make after (10.30 am - late enough to be civilized and shower/dress relatively unhurried!) mass, before we get home and put on the turkey/light the fire/pour a drink, then can settle down to open presents in a relaxed fashion, one at a time, and interrupting as necessary to check the turkey, turn on potatoes, or just top up glasses.

We live in a small flat - all rooms coming off the same hallway - so the living room door is closed over on Christmas Eve night and we put the stockings on the DC's bedroom door handle, so they bring them through to us first thing and we open stockings together on our bed - we don't put loads of things in stockings, and they only have one or two things different to each other in them (because they're 3 and 5) so there's not a lot to miss if they're opened at the same time. Then DH goes to "check" the living room, the kids check the mince pie etc has been eaten in the hallway then they get into the living room.

We to do turn taking with the presents in the living room, before breakfast. Then we all eat, have showers/get dressed and the kids get to play before my family come over for an early lunch/brunch. When they come over we do more turn taking, and the kids know to thank their grandparents.

We then go to PILs in the afternoon for Christmas dinner - dinner before presents, and MIL tends to bring the presents for the grandkids (4 of them) through, and DNs pile in to theirs in a wrapping paper frenzy, DH and I take one of our DC each to encourage them to take their time a bit more and actually look at what they got. Present time at MIL's is my least favourite part of the day - it's far too chaotic, and frankly stressful because there's SO MUCH wrapping paper on the go, and it's so hard to keep track of what's been unwrapped that you worry things go missing or get bundled up with the paper for the recycling.

Wow I always read threads like these and think these differences must be regional

We get up - run down and open every single present in one go! (Though extended family present exchanged face to face later in the day).

That's the whole excitement of it all! I can't imagine my kids seeing all their gifts and being made to wait! They've waited all year 😁

I honestly don't know a single person in real life who doesn't do the same as me!

Me and dd get up around 8am. Have brekkie, unwrap a few. I go and have a bath and both get ready, unwrap the rest.

Dd is 21 but been the same system since she was 9.

Stockings in bed, when the kids were younger they included a drink carton and something to eat , because DD would be up by 4. Then get me up about 6 so I can make DH coffee, he usually has at least 2 cups of strong coffee before he gets up. Then we open presents, whilst having mince pies. Youngest person gets them out from the tree and we watch whilst they are opened in turn. Although one year it was nearly lunch time by the time they were all opened

Christmas doesn't start until 7am in our house.
Kids wake up open stockings in bed, they come in and see us and each other in bed.
Wrapped up presents of clothes on their chairs in the dining room.
Fancy breakfast
Everybody has to be dressed (maybe the new clothes) and washed, ready for the day.
Everybody settled in living room, drink in hand before present opening starts.
One person choses a present from under the tree, hands it to whomever it's for, they open it then pick a present for the next person and so on.
Stop for church
More presents, same choosing routine.
Lunch.
Games/toys
Evening snacks/drinks
TV
Bed

This is my first time doing Christmas, DH's grandad is coming and expects to eat at midday. 1pm at the latest so no calm morning for me this year!
Usually, DS opens his stocking and we have pancakes for breakfast. Take it in turns to get dolled up and head over to IL's or my parents for Christmas dinner.
In both our families, we don't open "tree" presents until the evening.
Most of the day passes in a wine induced fuzz!

My stocking always had
A book
Chocolate
Posh drink of something

To be opened whenever I woke up, and didn't wake parents up. Turns out the book, food and drink were just a way of keeping me quiet until they got up

Christmas tree lights are on a timer so downstairs is prepped for us. They come on at 6am. In dd7's room. Her Christmas tree lights come on at 7, when she sees the lights, she knows she can come in to our room shouting "he's been!" Im hoping to entertain dd2 in our room with episodes of Bing, if she wakes up before 7. We open stockings in our room, then come downstairs. The kids take turns, with occasional breaks for mummy and daddy to open a present. At some point we stop for breakfast. This year, PIL will pop down in thr morning. Then we will go to my parents for dinner. Opening presents there is a complete 'free for all'. On alternate years we go to PIL for dinner. They alternate opening as there are 13 of us.

We open the stockings first thing on Christmas morning - although now the boys are all,older (21, 23 and 25), first thing is thankfully a lot later than it was when they were little! We leave the stockings in front of the fire in the front room, and come down in pyjamas/nightie and dressing gowns.

Then, after lunch, we open the presents under the tree.

This is the way my parents always did it - although they used to have Christmas dinner at lunchtime, and we have it in the evening (so I don’t have to spend the morning running round the kitchen like a blue arsed fly) - and we did it this way because we didn’t want all the present opening over and done with before day had even fully broken, so they got their stockings to open, and that kept them going until after lunch when they got to open the big presents.

My kids are 2&3 so still working things out.
They wake us up, we bring stockings through to our bed. DP will dash downstairs to make us a quick cup of tea while we empty out the stockings (I wrap stocking presents in tissue paper, one colour each) and when he's back we open them. Then we head downstairs and they open all their presents, at the same time. And then they help us open ours while I stick breakfast on. We eat and then go to my mum's (5 mins away) where the rest of the family are waiting for us to arrive and we open the rest of our presents all together and have dinner there.