Putting ALL the gifts under the tree

[BercowsFestiveFlamingo]

Except actual stockings (not pillowcases or sacks but things shaped like a long sock stocking).

Do you do it if you have dc?

Mine have a stocking each and then gifts have always gone in sacks except for those from FC which go under the tree when he delivers them. Presents are generally not seen until Christmas morning except for those my mum brings with her that other family have given in advance. She gets a stocking and sack from us here and tells me off every Christmas for spoiling her 😁

The sacks always look great and exciting but sometimes I wonder what it would be like if everything was put under the tree and the dc and mum came down to the oft quoted huge pile on Christmas morning. Would it be chaos with everyone trying to read tags and pass gifts to who they are for? I'd have to actually use tags for a start instead of just putting one tag on the sack to say whose it is.

We aren't ones for change at all but I do wonder if it would be nice to see.

How do you do it in your family if you have dc young or old?

Yes we don't live near most family. I won't be seeing my sister and her family and we also get presents from my aunties and uncles who all live quite far from us.

Stockings on the mantelpiece and all presents under the tree. I use the same selection of wrapping paper for everyone so its down to reading the tag for each one. Santa presents have their own wrapping paper. He brings only a couple of things here and we do the rest. We all take turns having a rake and getting a couple of gifts out to hand out.
It all goes out after dd 9 goes to sleep on christmas eve.

Presents go under the tree as they are wrapped/received. So currently there are presents under the tree and have been for a while. (Kids are between 2&9 and no issues with tampering or anything at all)

Stockings in bedrooms and Santa brings one big present from their letter to Santa too.

All other gifts under the tree and from the person who bought them.

That’s how we do it! But there’s no right or wrong.

Stockings put under the trees in the kids bedrooms, filled overnight by Santa so they see them the minute they wake up. A present each from parents and sibling in bed in the morning, any accumulated gifts from outside the immediate household under the tree to be passed around after lunch when gps, aunts etc. are with us to see them opening their gifts.

We've always done gifts in a sack and anything too big or any overflow in a little pile next to it. That's how my parents did it too.

We've only ever put gifts off wider family under the tree. Stockings are upstairs for us to open in bed together.

Presents from friends / extended family / coworkers go under the tree when received.

Christmas eve all of the presents from immediate family go under the tree.

I largely colour code the presents via the wrapping paper so no need to label those ones, and then when you inevitably run out a separate paper is used and that one has sticker label tags.

It is the youngest job to hand out the present, 2-3 people get one at a time and then opens it at the same time - avoids having to be performative, those with more presents (the youngest) opens on each occasion if that makes sense.

We have stockings by their beds and then all of their presents go in their sacks, ones from Santa, us, family who are there. Too many of us to put them all under the tree.

Same!

All presents from named people under the tree, and put there once received (from others) or wrapped (by us) to await The Day.

Father Christmas brings pillowcase of presents to the foot of the bed overnight, for the excited (now adult) DC to discover in the morning. (This is now an early morning delivery, as the beasts stay up too late; how times have changed).

(What I haven't worked out yet is what Father Christmas will do with stockings once DC partners are in the picture - at present it's still "go home to own family for Christmas, do NY together" but I don't know how long that will last before it's neither/both, possibly alternating or possibly never with parents again).

Presents go under tree. Youngest capable child plays Santa's helper and hands out one present to each person. Everyone opens a present. My mother used to complain about not seeing people open their gifts, and used to hoard hers to open when everyone else was done, so we implemented a rule to support AND thwart her.

We keep going round till everyone is done. It usually demonstrates nicely to the youngest ones that they get more presents than anyone else, and stops fights.

All our presents for everyone go under tree and we open in turn after lunch. DS now 17 gets a stocking from Santa left in his room

Presents on sofas on Christmas morning here! Nothing under the tree other than gifts that need to leave the house to go to other people or small things people have given us for the kids in advance.

We did this one year as I was trying to stretch things out and thought it would fun for the kids to find their gifts and sort them into their piles.5he kids didn't like it so we went back to sacks (with just the presents from other family members under the tree)

Stockings (which are from Santa here) go outside bedroom doors, to be opened all together on our bed
Presents from us go in two piles on the living room floor and a few presents from other people go under the tree. Grandparents give the presents at their own houses when we visit on Christmas Day/Boxing Day. There isn't a lot of room under our tree for presents because it's wedged in a corner

Christmas presents that we're giving / have got from people go under the tree as and when. Santa leaves presents in/by stockings on Christmas Eve and they're on the sofa.

Santa presents opened immediately when we've decided it's late enough to go downstairs, then tree presents as an when there's a lull in the day.

I've always laid the presents out under the tree for DD and put DS's presents on one of the sofa's ( at their requests )

This is the first year I've used sacks and it just looks so much nicer & tidier 😅

On Christmas Eve we stack presents up into piles in front of where we sit, ready for the morning. Ds also has a stocking upstairs and a sack of presents downstairs alongside his pile.

I never realised how many people use pillow cases. I have never heard of it until this year reading it on MN.

I remember one year the whole tree in the bay window was surrounded by presents up to about knee high. Probably around 1988. I was so so so excited to open them!
I think it’s really good for kids to have a bit of delayed gratification and get really excited for the big day!
Yes there’s a lot of faff with the tags but DH tends be on hands and knees fetching the presents out and handing one to each DS who then takes it to the designated pile. I’m generally making morning muffins/teas etc. As he goes along DH tends to group the presents together for people we might be seeing later in the season.
Once everyone present has their piles, we sit next to them and take turns to open!
DHs bum sticking out from behind the tree whilst he issues muffled shouts of “here’s another one!” and the kids killing themselves laughing and the excitement at looking at every single tag and seeing who it’s for and my Mum cracking open the Buck’s Fizz etc is one of the best bits for me.

Yes, we put all gifts under the tree (no sacks or bags etc). We think it looks pretty! We don't have lots and lots of presents, though, they do all kind of fit around the base... I imagine it can look a bit silly if there are boxes taking up half the floor.

Other than that, only DC's stocking in bedroom.

Christmas presents from family and us go under tree slowly added to throughout December. Santa presents appear on Christmas Eve! We do small Santa presents (mostly unwrapped) in stockings and large Santa presents (wrapped or unwrapped) under tree. There will be a full stocking and three or so Santa presents that have been requested or maybe a surprise. The big awkward things like dollhouse or bike we won’t wrap and just put out. Or, sometimes there will be a surprise outside the window when the curtains are opened (eg trampoline)

so basically there is a healthy stack decorating the room before Christmas but it’s still exciting on Christmas because the Santa ones tend to be physically large things and when wrapped it’s in a paper they haven’t seen for authenticity!

i Thought sacks were stocking alternatives never heard of doing both.

Thought sacks were stocking alternatives never heard of doing both.
Same here, just thought some (very lucky) kids had enormous 'stockings' (sacks, pillowcases).

Everything except stockings goes under the tree, here. Usually I do it on Christmas Eve but the DC are older now and I've told them I'm trusting them not to investigate early... Any poking or prodding will result in the presents being put away until the usual time!

I put their "big" present out in the middle of the room on Christmas Eve, unwrapped but covered with a blanket, constructed if necessary - like when they got their scooters or toy kitchen, for example. This year DD has a big Lego set and DS has a Hexbugs arena, so only his will need to be put together, thankfully (and that's DH's job!).

We have "stockings" on beds and presents under the tree. Sometimes we use Christmassy pillow cases instead of stockings. But they're still on beds.

Nope, I grew up in the north (as did DH, both had similar christmases) where its common for presents to be laid out on the sofa and chairs. Stocking weren't a things and no wrapped under tree presents, everything came 'from' Santa (except the Christmas eve box stuff)... thats how it was growing up for us.

We do:

• Christmas eve box (just tradition)
• Presents from us under tree (all through December)
• Presents 'delivered' by Santa on christmas eve night all set up around the room (like it was growing up)
• Santa sack (with presents 'from' Santa) on chair
• Stockings hung on downstairs door (they are too heavy to hang on the fireplace, I tried for years but they always fall off)

We added in the wrapped presents, sack and stocking because I like whimsy and adding new traditions.