Christmas Eve night - children won't sleep!

[Justonemorecup81]

I have two daughter's 8 and 5 who are night owls and struggle to fall asleep at the best of time but add the excitement of Father Christmas coming and all hell breaks loose. Last year dc took they're stockings into their room (they were sharing as had visitors) and they couldn't sleep. We tried switching their stockings for other members of the family, so at least we could swap filled stockings, but they saw the wrong names on their stockings. They were awake when we gave up and went to bed at midnight. We ended up having to set our alarm for 3am and then perform Ninja style moves to retrieve their stocking to be filled and replaced. They then woke at 5.30am!!! Does anyone else struggle with filling stockings? I'm thinking we might leave them downstairs this year, any advice welcome

When we were kids we hung out stockings on the back of our bedroom doors and it was always really exciting to open the door in the morning to find the full stockings leaning up against the wall. Even when we were too old to believe we kept that tradition and I'm going to continue it with my daughter 🙂

Stockings downstairs!

My parents used to take us to the midnight service at the Church. It wasn’t until I was older I realised it was less about religion and more about tiring us out in Christmas Eve night.

Midnight mass. Either for wearing out the children or for making sure an adult is awake enough at 1am for stocking

I feel your pain! I have an owl and a lark and between them Christmas Eve is the shortest night of the year. Other evenings I can take them for a long walk to tire them out but that’s not easy with a houseful of elderly relatives with their various prosthetic hips and knees!

I put mine to bed extra early and let them horse about a bit, and eventually go upstairs for the traditional lecture about Santa not coming if, and then I forbid anymore talking and stay with them a while to enforce it. I’m luckier that at least one will drop off, so the other might get bored to sleep.

I am very organised with gifts - everything is wrapped, and the wrapping is specific to the child, sacks are packed and sitting in the sleigh my car boot. Stockings are kept downstairs in our house (hung by the chimney with care) and it is a one minute job to get everything laid out. It has to be because by then I am stupid with sleepiness and liable to mess up. I really missed a trick on matching stockings (genius) because I bought mine years ago in a fit of sentimentality long before I even had dc but if you can do that it’s very clever.

Could you just head to bed early and set an alarm? That way you’d at least get some sleep. Or change the clock in their room back a few hours and forbid them to get up before 5am (actually 8)?

I walk mine up a mountain on Christmas Eve.

Also have copies of stockings so just swap the full one over.

Sorry mine was very long, I realised afterwards.

TD:LR
Calm late afternoon and evening, no screens, nice (and plenty of) food, lower level lights, reason to encourage warm bath and pjs, hot milky drink, cosy bed, gentle but inexorable movement towards a calm bedtime. Leave DC to drift with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads

Sort out a rota for the adults to take the children out during the day to tire them out, you don't want to knacker yourself out!
I have cheap remote lightbulb and blue is very calming.

Stockings were left downstairs to be filled and magiced there way up to rooms during the night. Lots of reminders during December about having to be asleep, whatever books and films that also make this point.

The stockings could be opened if people were still sleeping as I had early and late risers.

Just a thought but would it help to get them up a bit earlier every morning for a week before to, hopefully, shift bedtime forward.

Downstairs, near the door or chimney

My dad took the "Santa won't come if you're awake" a step further and told us all that, if Santa found we were awake, we'd be taken to work in a sweatshop in the North Pole, to stop us revealing his true identity.

Now, I'm not saying do that.
But it was effective.

This was me when I was young! My parents would (for some unknown reason) not wrap any presents until Christmas Eve, meaning they were up crazy late being Santa and then I'd wake up at 4am ready to start Christmas!

Keep stockings downstairs, to make filling easier. Then on Christmas morning, we were allowed to open our stockings while parents slept. We'd usually get a few small gifts in there to keep us busy.

My older sister would also delay me even going downstairs by saying she needed to clean her room first. No idea what bribe was going on between her and my parents, looking back on it! But was honestly a tradition to sit in her room and watch her tidy! 😂😂

Your Christmas Eve sounds lovely @BiddyPop

@anotail now that is tempting!

@thelegohooverer that may work

Thank you all for your suggestions, I think I will plan plenty of walking and definitely move stockings downstairs

When I was little it used to be on the end of my bed, which was wonderful. Until a child in my class told me that Santa wasn't real and it was my Mum and Dad (I was around 6/7). I told him he was wrong but I sat awake that year and saw my Dad look in to see if I was asleep yet, it completely confirmed it for me and the magic was always a little broken after that. Knowing my eldest is the inquisitive we always used to hang hers on the door handle. However this did mean a tense change over before bedtime as she is a light sleeper. We redecorated the living room last year and so I made the suggestion we hang all our stockings on the new fire place. God I wish we'd done it sooner. It was so much easier than it normally is. I thought it would ruin it having nothing to open upstairs but we all came down and opened the stockings together (with hubby and I more awake for a change!) and then there was a natural break for breakfast before the bigger gifts.
So my suggestion is come up with a reason to move them downstairs, you won't look back. ;)

I used to give the kids a bath bomb to help them sleep. I'm not sure if they worked or not but it meant we weren't chasing 3 hyperactive children. DD still wakes up at 4 Christmas morning. She's normally chatting to DDiL until the kids same up. We gave up trying to control her waking time, stockings were hung on bedroom doors and contained something to eat, something to drink and something to play . At least she didn't wake anyone else and some years went back to sleep.

As a child we never had stockings, just a pillowcase downstairs.

A couple of families I know who do church Xmas morning Santa comes in the night but nothing is allowed to be opened until after church so there is no point getting up at 5am because you just look at a pile of wrapped presents for hours.

I think a glittery letter from the Chief elf explaining about social distancing and leaving things downstairs would help.

Also Santa is magic, the only way he can visit everyone is by magic (he saves up all his magic throughout the year) and every time a child sees him a little bit of magic is used up, this is why good children close their eyes as soon as they go to bed and don't open them until day light.

This is bound to happen when people make A BIG DEAL!! of Christmas Eve. The trick is not to make such a faff of it. Boxes and listening for Santa and all that.

I'd keep the stockings downstairs so they're not tempted to mess with them, for sure.