Do you wrap toys in the their boxes or take them out first?

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Do you wrap toys in the their boxes or take them out first?

Er. Why would you take them out? Isn't unboxing part of the fun?

If you mean the cardboard delivery box from Amazon or whatever then yes I remove it unless it's a box from friends or family.. as I don't know if the presents inside are wrapped, I would keep the whole parcel intact but if this is a toy I mail ordered, then I would remove the delivery package however the nicely decorated box that the present came in from the manufacturer stays on and gets wrapped. For example, if I ordered Barbie and she came in a Barbie box and then Amazon cardboard, I would remove the Amazon cardboard but keep the Barbie box and wrap it instead of taking out the dolly and wrapping her.

What kind of

…psychopath would inbox them!?

Unbox. Omg too early for me.

Definitely in their boxes, can't imagine why you'd take them out (unless it is a plain cardboard box as PP mentioned)

Soooo much easier to wrap a box too.

It completely depends on what the toy is. If it's something that needs to be built before being played with then it makes sense to take it out and wrap it when it's been assembled. If it's just a toy that comes in packaging or a box then no need to remove it, and as a bonus it makes the wrapping much easier.

I used to take them out and put any batteries in that needed it and make sure everything worked. Was much less stressful on Christmas day.

In their boxes, unless they've come in something horrible looking, like a tatty, plain brown box.

When mine were babies I would take them out the box as I thought it was easier so they could play straight away but now they’re older I leave them in the box as I think it’s part of the fun and I also can’t be doing with trying to hide the boxes before they go in the recycling

Absolutely this. Can’t imagine giving DGS a much wanted toy then making him wait a couple of hours for someone to assemble it for him.

If it's a bike, or a play kitchen for a toddler, something like that, I can see the benefit of assembling it beforehand. And I think it's recommended to get games consoles out in advance and do the firmware updates and things beforehand as the servers are really slow on Christmas Day when everyone is doing it at once.

I've got my niece and friends kids things like a Mincecraft lego set, Frozen Duplo, Mario toy figures - none of which need assembling in advance. Or the building is literally the point! So that all stays in boxes.

Unbox if there's any set up required. Dear god unbox if it's Playmobil and your child is under 5 and desperate to play with the toy they can see on the box rather than the miscellaneous collection of tiny items that only an adult can put together... I may still be traumatised by DS' birthday.

One christmas we got my daughter a baby pram, doll and set of clothes. It took us both over 45 minutes to snip carefully all the tags on the clothes set, as each was put in display box with at least 6 tiny tags! She would have been so frustrated waiting all that time.

Also built play kitchen in advance.

We used to assemble the big stuff. I miss the days of building kitchen and cosy coupe cars...

We also used to open boxes to remove annoying tags etc (especially the ones that were screwed to the packaging)

Something that was meant to be 'unboxed' like an LoL doll was left obviously.

It depends what it is. Anything that is quick to open gets wrapped in its box. Anything that needs assembly or setting up gets unboxed and done before Xmas.

EG DD has a tonie box for Xmas, I’ve had it all out of the box, done the software update and installed the tonies so it’s all ready to go with no faff on Xmas day. She’s also got a little rag doll with bottle and dummy etc, that will get wrapped in its box.

As others have said, if it needs a lot of assembling then unbox, if not leave it boxed.

I always have intentions of checking things work first but never get round to it, usually the thought of faffing around trying to rebox something puts me off.

Part of the fun for Christmas is messing around snipping hundreds of plastic bits attaching a tiny object to a box ( a whole other thread) and having a queue of kids wanting to put batteries in things.

Back when my dd was younger I used to take the toys out the box, cut off all the plastic, cable ties etc and put the batteries in. I would then put the toy back in the box and wrap it. Saved so much faffing about on Xmas day.

Because if it needs set up or built it's a waste of time on the day and boring for the child. It needs to be ready to play with as soon as they see it really

Agree with pp, it depends what is Is. Some of the toys we are getting will be laid out for them to see straight away, some will be built and wrapped and some will be boxed and wrapped.

Carefully open to remove the billion pieces of twisted wire or plastic tags.

Assemble Playmobil models as far as possible, remove the tiny pieces and accessories for safe keeping if there are small DC around. Re-box.

Consoles - set up on Wi-Fi, run any updates and download any games you've bought. Charge batteries.

Trampoline - send the DC out for the day on xmuntil it's dark. Do not try to assemble in darkness and freezing conditions!

When the DC were little we would prebuild Christmas toys that looked likely to be time consuming to build.

But generally we wrap things in the box.

We do not speak of the Christmas we tried to build a trampoline after bedtime of Christmas Eve in the snow.

My memory of toy packaging was an impenetrable mass of twisted wires, tape and vacuum packed plastic. I used to undo the wires etc and get it so that toy could be removed easily before wrapping.

Lol I can just imagine!

Last year we were yo until 2am setting up a train track without the instructions. It was hell. Doesn't even play with it much 🤦

We do wrapped and unwrapped gifts.

Wrapped ones are almost always in box (unless it didnt come in a box like some plushies etc...)

The unwrapped ones are out and set up, they are usually too big/awkward to wrap (this year includes a wood kitchen , gaming chair, rocking horse... Im not attempting to wrap those lol).

I see no reason why you would deliberately unbox something then try to wrap it.