What are your present traditions?

[Neversleepingever]

Growing up, we opened all our presents in one go first thing on Christmas morning. It was always a manic, exciting chaos. But then once it was over. It was a bit of a comedown. Almost a bit sad because it was all over after all the anticipation - The come down after a big high.

Now im grown up, This is the first year I think my DS will have more of a concept of Christmas. He'll be 3 in March and I'd like to start some Xmas traditions and would love if you would share yours.

Maybe a present on Xmas Eve? Open all in Xmas morning but save one for boxing day to keep the excitement going? A hidden present in the tree you find only when taking the decs down?

We do stockings in our bedroom. Everyone has one. Even adults. The stockings have quite nice presents in them. DC stocking presents are from FC.

Then downstairs for a pillowcase of presents for each of the the 3 DC, from us and grandparents (a normal sized pillowcase not a huge sack).

After lunch we open presents under the tree. These are from family and friends. Take turns in handing these out.

Occasionally a few might get left for Boxing Day but this is not a particular plan.

We do stockings in our bedroom, not before 7.
Then breakfast and dressed.
Then do some meal prep, eg lay the table or whatever
Then a few presents, including a new DVD (see curating order above)
Then DC watch DVD or play with other presents until my DPs arrive ~11/11:30.
See them in, coffee, etc followed by the main present opening. We do this by giving out one each then watching in turn as people open.
Then final meal prep and eat 1pm, wash up, ready for Queen's speech.
Walk down the meal then back for any remaining presents and general collapse.

We definitely do not do them all in one go as neither I nor the DCs would be able to cope. We often used to have some left over for Boxing Day or later too.

So my girls are a bit older now (9, 12 & 13) but still very much magic believers...

We don’t have stockings in bedrooms, never did when I was little as I was scared of Santa coming into my room, easier to fill when they are away from sleeping children and I also loved the the picture tradition of 3 stocking hanging on a fireplace etc...

We have a strict not before 7 rule but they all sleep in the same room on Christmas Eve and I secretly love listening to them chattering and counting down the minutes till they can come through...

We all have a cuddle on our bed and then my husband goes down stairs to check if “he’s been” light candles, put carols on, get the fizz out and this is one of my favourite moments, the impatience and anticipation of what’s to come and the magic of seeing their Santa piles and knowing that Santa has visited.

Stockings are a free for all, DH and I will have a cup of tea and I still love the rustle and feel of a packed stocking!!

Santa sacks are next but we take in turns to open so than we can make it last and everyone can see what everyone else has, this last quite a long time and I love the change in daylight as the rest of the world is waking up and enjoying the start of their Christmas too...

We then have a posh breakfast and girls take everything to their room and make their piles!!!! 😍

The next part has evolved as our DC have got older, mid afternoon after we have all got dressed up we open a bottle of very posh Champagne/NA bubbles for the girls, we put blini canapés out (this is our starter and the bit I look forward to most on Christmas Day) and we open all the family presents under the tree, Grandparents are always very generous on both sides, so always quite big wow presents and the girls really look forward to this part and I like that the balance still fells right between magic and big more grown up.

We also always have a present for the table, this various year to year and sometime just a really nice little thing and then other years it’s been one of their bigger pressies, I like to keep them guessing so the excitement is still going.

We are not doing this year but we also sometimes play bad Santa, again I have done this with both just cracker fillers/nonsense and more substantial presents, the girls bee really know what’s coming next and they all say that’s the best part of Christmas.

Op, all of those are good ideas! I do like but have never done the open 1 present Xmas eve...

Usually we do the Xmas morning thing... Then a friend comes for dinner and we do his gifts later...

I do like the hidden under the tree though and keep others back for later too.... I used to like opening a few gifts during the meal, eg first course
.. Break, presents..., second etc...

I think I'going to spread some around this time...

A pontastic Christmas... I actually had a tear reading that.

What a wonderful sounding Xmas day. I've just found a fantastic non alcoholic fizz my girls like too... I think I'll copy you with the dress up and have fizz...

You're very lucky to have two sets of generous gp too. It sounds like their is alot of love in your house 😍😍❤️❤️🎄🎄🤶⛄💖.

I like the idea of a table present...

Kids get up around 7/8 never too early thank god. We all go down and they get to open their Santa sacks which were left by the tree. We have a cup of tea and watched them open gifts, mixture of stocking fillers and bigger things like books or craft sets, also chocs and treats.

Then we get around to breakfast, something easy like choc crossiants. I get on with any dinner prep that needs doing. Slowly we get ready for the day up and dressed (smartish but comfortable). Skype first lot of family in UK.

Once we have snacks, appies, a bucks fizz for us and lemonade for the kids we can do tree presents. We all take it in turns and see what each other get, we put silly clues on the gift tag and is traditional to try and guess.

That can take us until 1/2pm ish then kids play with new toys, build things or play a game, more dinner prep then we eat around 3/4pm.

After dinner play games, chill, put on some good tv or a movie. Skype second lot of relatives in Oz and thats pretty much the day!

Growing up we always had Boxing Day presents - a couple small presents from my parents ( usually a book, item of clothing, sweets - all our presents on Xmas day came from Santa) and then my Grandma did us a shoe box each covered in wrapping paper which had lots of little gifts in - so soaps she’d picked up from hotels, little chocolates etc. Actually we didn’t have stockings so I guess these were quite like stocking gifts.

They were all inexpensive gifts. The funny thing is I temper the Boxing Day gifts more than any of my main Christmas presents! I loved and still love Boxing Day!

I continued the tradition slightly modified - works well now as a single parent as still do joint gifts with the ex and now I do a few little gifts just from me on Boxing Day.

Stockings in my bed, no earlier than 8am. I think it was 7 when they were small but teens aren't in a hurry to get up

Then breakfast and one present before Church. This was usually a new outfit when they were small to wear that day.

Other presents are opened slowly throughout the day. And we watch each other open them. My step dad hates it

Sinxe I started doing Christmas at home rather than my mums (so last year)shared game is opened either while the dinner is in the oven or just after while we still have the table out to play on (have a folding one and can't be arsed to keep pulling it out and setting it up)

I've found it means everything actually gets looked at and played with properly. Mind you I usually only buy my dc 5-6 things anyway so there's no mountains of presents here like I see on Facebook.

Stockings & breakfast in bed (wrapped croissants, orange juice, that kind of thing).

Dressed and out for church in normal times.

Back for tree presents and fry up brunch.

Dinner at 6pm with candles and table presents (usually a chocolate / sweetie tube). Pjs on and slob on the sofa watching a film.

Grandparent presents on Boxing Day when both sets visit together with a Christmas buffet.

Obviously this is in normal times, not sure how it’ll pan out this year.

We've always spent Boxing Day at my Dad's. My step mum does "tree presents" which are presents from the Christmas tree. Usually body sprays/tubes of sweets. Wrapped up and handed out at random, usually only split into male/female if relevant (eg when it's body spray)

My mum always makes her own crackers which have small presents in rather than plastic tat. So each cracker has to be named to make sure we get the right one.

Stockings in the morning.
Other presents throughout the day.
One small gift left for each person on the Christmas tree to be opened on Boxing day.

When I was a child we used to be allowed to open one small present on Christmas Eve to help calm us down before bed. With my children I give them new pyjamas on Christmas Eve, we watch a film and often get a new game. One year it was a marble run which my son played with non stop until well after new year. He wasn’t even interested in opening any presents!
Stockings first thing, usually in our bed but the older ones sometimes rifle through theirs first.
The breakfast/get dressed/any lunch prep.
Then the presents are handed out one at a time from under the tree. Really spreads it out (and gives me a chance to write a list for thank yous). The children often play with what they’ve got in between opening which makes the teenagers impatient

My mum always insisted presents were spaced out throughout the day.

Morning was for stockings, then we'd shower, dress and have breakfast. Lunch at 2ish, then a couple of presents each hour until bedtime.

On boxing day, she would have put all of our gifts in a box so we could take stock of what we'd been given (I always forgot overnight) and just have a day of play.

I remember this routine really fondly and would highly recommend for giving the Christmas magic longevity.

When I was little, I always got pjs or a nightie wrapped up on my bed on Christmas Eve, found after my bath at bedtime.
On Christmas morning all of my gifts and stockings were in the living room (only me and DM)
Then we'd go to my DGP's for lunch and swap gifts with them, my auntie & cousin.
My dad would sometimes call over on Christmas Day or Boxing Day with a gift and £20 in a card.

Now we have DD, I plan on doing the following:
Pjs on bed after Christmas Eve bath
Stocking from Santa (left on the bannister in the hallway outside bedrooms) opened in our room
Tree gifts (from me and DH, and any others given in advance) while eating toast and drinking tea!
Family gifts, when we see them (would usually be at SIL's house, when we go for lunch)

We let the kids open all their presents in the morning. It’s chaos Me and DH save our presents to each other until the evening when everything is done and we can sit together with a drink and relax.

Stockings first thing then rest of presents . They split Christmas between me and their dad so usually have two lots of presents to open . This year they will be at dads Christmas Eve so will do presents there and then we are going to my parents to they will open more once we get there .
We used to do a little present on the tree opened in the evening which I’m tempted to bring back this year.

Growing up, we used to have our presents in the morning (usually, very early), but there was always a small gift next to the tree that was for the evening. After tea, we would open these. They were only small things - maybe a cheap jigsaw or a little craft kit, but they gave us something to do before bed, and left a little excitement for the evening.

Now, DILs always make a gift sack for the kids (as well as their main presents!!!!!). We tend to put these in the fireplace and open during the afternoon. Again, it spreads the gift magic out a bit.

I'd also love some because most of our traditions are in the lead up to Christmas and like you said, after opening presents it's all over. We do Christmas day lunch and dinner with extended family though.

As kids-

Stockings when awoke (santa brought them)
One tree present before breakfast (from mum and dad mostly, 1 from Santa)
Rest of tree presents after breakfast
Presents from visiting relatives before xmas dinner at approx 3pm

Always also a xmas wve film, xmas walk on the day after big breakfast (no lunch), and relatives visiting always had drinks and cheese and crackers before presents. Presents had to be done with everyone having one so we had to make sure granny had a present too, not just leap on ours!

I may be late to the show but grew up in Germany. We went to church and the Christkind which is father christmas came whilst we were at church, then it was present time but we weren't allowed to open them all at once. We had to roll a dice and we decided before which number let's you open a presents, so everyone sees each other open the present they received and then we move on :) xx

Christmas Eve hamper to share.

Stockings in our bed first thing then downstairs for Santa gift and a few tree presents.

Bacon sandwich’s and tea then more tree presents.

Usually open family gifts when we see them in the afternoon but goodness knows this year.

Growing up I would open my stocking as soon as I woke up and then it was downstairs for the rest of the presents. We’d have lunch and then we’d head to my grandparents where family presents would be given out.
We live a 3 hour drive from both sets of parents. We don’t tend to many Christmas Day’s with our families due to work commitments and previous disasters with travelling between the two.
It’s evolved that we visit my family the weekend before Xmas and the children are allowed to open presents at that point. Christmas Day we have stockings and main presents in the morning and presents from friends in the afternoon.
28th-1st is spent with the IL’s and we have our 3rd Christmas with them.
We’ve found that this works for us, the kids appreciate their presents as they don’t feel overwhelmed and grandparents get to enjoy watching them open their gifts.

On 1st December I do a Christmas Breakfast, I set the table with their Christmas cups and glassware, small crackers, table cloth, etc and menu (they always choose the same thing though, pancakes followed by breakfast wrap).

Their elf arrives at the same time, bringing with him advent calendars and Christmas related tat (The range was good for this stuff this year), along with Christmas pjs (why get them on Xmas Eve only for them to be relevant for one day?) and books (the Matt Haig Christmas Trilogy this year) and their Christmas jumpers.

When DC were little it was stockings in our bed (way too early of course) then everyone downstairs for brekkie and pressie opening around 10.
Now they're all young adults its still stockings on our bed (but much later) ...although DS1 did open his in a drunken state at 4am couple of years ago but couldn't remember doing it .
Now it's all a bit more civilised with fizz and smoked salmon around 11.30 for main pressies.

When I was young (family of 5), we always had close family friends stay with us at Christmas (live in Somerset and have fam close to us), so Christmas Eve my sister and I and their 2 daughters would all sleep in same room and wake up early to open our stockings. This was from about 5am!!

Then all 9 of us would come downstairs around 7-8am to half the living room piled up with gifts (literally insane amount of gifts!) and we'd go around the room opening them. One of us was always the hander out! Mum would keep the kettle going with endless tea/coffee and we'd traipse back and forth to the kitchen for warm croissants. Took a go 90 minutes to open them all and someone always got Yardley lavender talc from an elderly aunt.

Then they'd go off to their family for lunch around 11am and we'd anticipate our fam arriving about 1.30 for mums feast and more gifts.

The whole day, my dad would play The Carpenters Christmas Album and Bing Crosby in the background. I had such a magic childhood, it seems impossible to recreate it so far away from the UK.

We do all presents/stockings under the tree and it's mostly a complete free for all! Starts with Champagne and coffee and The Carpenters album but this year we've gotten the boys their own iPads so we're saving them until later in the day when they can open them together and be surprised.

Christmas afternoon after lunch, all our friends come over and the kids play in the pool, we drink my legendary eggnog and champagne and stuff our faces with cheese/crackers, onion bahjis, pakora, samosa and spring rolls.

Boxing Day is spent building the multiple LEGO sets the boys get, nursing intense hangovers and eating leftovers.

Fuck I love Christmas...