An AIBU Christmas question.

[Haylstones]

We're spending our first Christmas in our own home (family are 200 miles away and are welcome but won't be here)We're visiting them this weekend to exchange gifts and I'm wondering if I'm being mean by not allowing dd (age 3) to open hers when we visit as they won't see her on Xmas Day (as has been suggested). Part of our reasoning for not going is because we always end up travelling about and dd opens presents all over the place and we all end up knackered and cranky but I'm also 6 months pg and would like a nice relaxing day at home. She's already super excited about Xmas Day and asks almost every day how many sleeps she has left so giving her presents early would (IMO) fuel this excitement!
IS it really unreasonable to want to bring dd's presents home and wait until 25th Dec to open them? Am I mean by not letting her open some this weekend?
(FWIW, dd doesn't know this is why we're going and presents can easily be hidden from her)

Or do it live via web cam?

I would much rather spread presents out as much as possible.

I visited a 6 year old on christmas night a few years ago (before i had children). He had a huge mountain ( no exaggeration) of presents in the living room. I asked him what his favourite was and he pointed to one buried at the bottom that he hadn't even opened yet.

I never want that to happen with my los. IMO they can get too much at once and be overwhelmed. It doesn't help them to be grateful for what they get either, but develops more of a 'where's my next present?' mentality.

Both sets of grandparents here live in ireland and we are in scotland. Last year, and this year i will be encouraging grandparents to give los presents when they visit. That way they can see the children enjoy their presents and the children will get to enjoy each one at a time.

No pressies til Christmas day, it's a slippery slope IMO. If they can't make the effort to be there, then unfortunately (for them) they'll miss a sparkly, excited face on xmas time.

My parents have chosen to be in Portugal from mid Oct til well after Christmas - they've dropped off the xmas (& birthday) presents (unwrapped).

If they were desperate to share your joy (like my folks), they'd be there.

I'll stop there as the bitterness seems to be seeping out!

We don't open any presents until Christmas Day, and none of the family bar me and Dh see DD opening them. Chrismas Day in this house is for the three of us together. Boxing Day is family day here. None of our family have ever expected to watch DD open presents nor to open them early. They are all more than happy to buy the gift imagining the pleasure of them being opened, and to see DD soon after to get her thanks and see her pleasure in using her gifts instead.

ja9 - we have never experienced that with DD despite having all presents at same time on one day. Both DH and myself had the same scenarios in our own childhood, and again - this problem did not occur.

When I was a child we has relatives all over the place, but we used to do the visiting after Christmas.

That way no presents were opened before Christmas, which seemed to be something of a taboo, but the pressies got spread out. Effectively, we had 3 or 4 Christmas days. It was great

I never let my kids open presents before Christmas but the relatives did complain they didn't get to see their faces. Actually as their presents were almost always unsuitable that was probably just as well.

Not practical for them all to visit us (and I'd have hated it). We did do a video but for us, relatives weren't interested. So then we started going post Christmas and everyone was happy - children got 2 Christmasses and by then were old enough to be polite when the gifts were unsuitable.

When we visited before we had children I would take a small gift for the child to open then and there and a larger one for the parents to hide. We used to say that Santa brought one gift for every relative who told him you'd been good....