How do you do stockings with tree presents...

[HopscotchBanana]

Just wondering, if you have young DC how you do stockings when they just want to rush downstairs and see what's appeared under the tree.

Basically, DTwins (age 5) put their stockings at the fireplace, whilst I read the night before Christmas, then leave a mince pie and a drink for the jolly old chap, then go to bed.

I fill their stockings and take them up and leave outside their door for them to wake up too. Being smaller kids, their main presents tend to be quite large, so the main "wow" stuff will be placed under or around the tree downstairs. They wake up Christmas morn, open their door and squeal at the stockings, but virtually tuck them under their arms to bolt downstairs and see the tree presents. It's more the wow factor because inherently being twins, there's double presents plus we have other DC, plus that's where DH and I leave each others things.

They love the ritual of leaving the stockings, so I can't lose them. How can I navigate this that they open their stockings upstairs and enjoy the little gifts? Ideally they would open them in the morning, play with the little toys and then onto their main bits later. But I can't prevent them from wanting to rush down to the bit that's most magical to them. I can't bring the presents out later because it's really not the same with me lugging the whole family's presents into the living room in ten trips to carry everything, while they watch.

What do others do?

We do stockings and a big present by the fireplace. Then move on to presents under the tree. All in the living room as that is much easier.

OP, it partly depends how your house is configured. As children, we always had to have breakfast before presents, but the Christmas tree was in the sitting room, and the door was ceremoniously opened by my father when it was “time”. In my house, the presents are in the dining room, because that’s where the Christmas tree is, and the DGC have stockings either by the fireplace in the sitting room or in the bedroom (parents’ choice). My own DC still have stockings in the bedroom. Nobody would dream of touching the presents under the tree until everyone is gathered, and nor would my DC when they were little (and I had twins, too). Unfortunately, OP, you’ve allowed your twins to rush downstairs and get stuck in - maybe try telling them this year that there are no presents under the tree until they’ve opened their stockings and had some breakfast.

Stockings stay downstairs for us, why do you think opening them in the mornings would make them enjoy them?
Maybe the problem is you’re doing too many physical gifts if you feel they can’t enjoy the stocking, most kids love the small stocking gifts.

Stockings stay downstairs here.
Stockings have any gift in if small enough here.
We open stockings first downstairs with having a Tea. Then everyone eats breakfast, gets dressed and main gifts after.

We do ours on my bed then go down together to see if Santa left anything else

Stockings are left in their bedroom at the bottom of their bed, and they are told that Santa doesn’t come too early, so if they get up and he hasn’t been, then he won’t come back so they need to stay in bed til at least 7.30am but they can open stockings and play with those!

Santa brings one biggish present and 1 small one. Everything else is from us or family. We wrap the stuff from us in the same colour paper for each child so we know what belongs to who! I don’t write labels…

when we go downstairs, they’re allowed to open Santa presents, but nothing else.

Mine are teens now but we did stockings on the fireplace with all of Santa’s presents arriving magically whilst they slept and all under tree presents were from us and family so went under the tree once they were ready and wrapped. My tree isn’t up until around 18th December as we have a real one so they didn’t have weeks of staring at presents. We came down and they could do stockings whilst we had a cuppa then after breakfast we did tree presents. Now they’re older we do tree presents after lunch but they still do stockings first thing.

My kids are young adults, they still bring their stockings into my room and open them on my bed with me before we go downstairs 😍

You can't really. It won't be 'fun' if you force them to sit and open their stocking when they want to be elsewhere.

We do the opposite. Get up and open the presents under the tree, then they play while we cook etc... followed by eating, cracker, family game and then after that in the evening we do stockings/sacks.

Non of its forced, this is how it naturally evolved.

As a child we had pillowcases left by our bedroom doors which we would open upstairs in our parents room and then go downstairs for stockings and then tree presents spread throughout the day.
We just grew up knowing that tree presents weren't to be opened until given. I'm sure when we were little we opened presents in the wrong order. Sometimes presents got hidden in another room so we couldn't see them.
We managed to stretch our now 3 year old out for 2 days last year so she wasn't overwhelmed but it was hard work.

I agree with pp that you don't want to make it feel forced to stay upstairs, like a rule or something. You want to make it seem fun. Can you engage your older child in saying before the big day how much they love the stockings, and suggesting that they are opened all together in the big bed? "This year let's do the stockings in bed!?"

When they are up and grab the stocking to go running downstairs could you say "leave the stockings here, go and peep and come back to open the stockings in bed together. Let me know how big the pile is!" Or something. Then they are allowed to go for the peek and wow factor you acknowledge that this is exciting but you've said stocking first back upstairs. You can try to make the stockings in bed sound exciting I think.

But in the end, if they run downstairs as previously because they are excited then so be it, things don't always go as you have in your mind and that's ok if everyone is having a good time.

When little my DDs thought everything came from Father Christmas, that’s fine they have learnt as they get older that no it dosnt. Two still belive, well one definitely the other I’m not sure, they now know it’s a mix, they write a Santa list and a bank of mum and dad one and have strict limits for each.

On Christmas morning it’s a free for all, like you it’s a big wow factor and race to see what’s under the tree. Stockings are an afterthought, I never grew up with them unless you included the old selection box ones and now that’s what mine effectively are stockings filled with chocolate and sweets. I use to put small gifts in but then stupidly introduced Santa sacks, big regret, as soon as Santa is out of the bag for my youngest they are going. Everything goes under the tree and everyone waits till everyone is up before going downstairs. I need to put a bra on before anything! Even when my DDs were very young the rule is we all wait until the last person wakes ( though sometimes they get nudged awake). Due to excitement everyone takes turns being the first down the stairs. we just cuddle in bed and wonder if the big man’s been while waiting.

Personally I just let them do their own thing when it comes to unwrapping. I put everything in piles as it’s all unfolding and then in their sacks so they can come back to things. They don’t always come back Christmas Day but eventually do and love the little “ stocking filler” type gifts eventually. I remember one Christmas one DD got her much wanted our generation playset, dolls and outfits, she spent the entire day playing with a 50p ruler with calculator on it 🤷‍♀️

I actually enjoy and have a little bet with DH on what’s going to be the most played with Christmas Day, more often than not it’s not the main presents but something random I’ve picked up as an extra they never even asked for.

I disagree with letting them do what they want and barge through the lot all in one go. Then there’s nothing to look forward to! It’s not all about the stuff it’s about being together, appreciating it. Kids are in their 20s now and we still do stockings on our bed, Santa presents among a mess presents from us,and then take our time with the rest. When I was a kid I would save a parcel for Boxing Day and our lot do it too.

What I did with mine was tell them that they couldn't go downstairs until X time, because we had to give Father Christmas time to tidy up, feed the reindeer and fuel them up for the rest of the run back to the North Pole. And he absolutely was not ALLOWED to be seen by anyone when he was on his delivery run. It was against the rules.

That bought enough time for stockings to be taken into bed and opened. Or maybe my lot were gullible little humans...?

that's exactly what I remember most about Christmas as a kid. If my mum wasn't married to someone who isn't my dad, I'd still climb on her bed to open my stocking now 😂

Stockings on bed. Tree is later in day. Easy enough to tell them that's the plan.

Stockings, which have enough loot in to keep them interested, on the end of the bed, to be brought into our room no earlier than 7am (ha!). Tree presents are for later. Simples.

We put tree presents out from early in December as they are from named people to each other. The stocking filling is the only thing that comes ‘by magic’ and so is the novel exciting thing to explore on Christmas morning. Being used to seeing the gifts but not touching them for ages also keeps the unwrapping calmer as it is just more of the same.

i have twin 6 yr olds (5 at Christmas) you might find they’ve calmed down slightly this year. We do the same as others where Father Christmas brings the stocking and it’s opened in my bedroom. We have teens and younger kids so the stockings keep the younger ones entertained until everyone has woken up properly and we’re ready to head downstairs for main presents.

Our little boy will be 4 at Christmas this year and we do stockings in bed (we get them too) and he also gets a want, need, read and wear present from Santa 🧑‍🎄 He has autism though and still has no idea what Christmas or Santa is even though we’ve seen Santa and done Christmassy activities with him every year 🤷‍♀️ We are still co-sleeping though and he has no idea that there will be presents downstairs (from us and any from family and friends that we have before/after going to see them) and whilst he does love seeing the presents and opening them it takes weeks-months to open them all as he gets bored/overwhelmed when opening them and chooses to play with what he opens when he opens them which is absolutely fine 😊 His stocking actually still had about half of the gifts still inside it until about a month ago when he decided that he wanted to empty it out 🤷‍♀️

Santa gift on their beds. Then downstairs and open stockings which DH and I drink coffee. Then we all have breakfast and then open tree presents. Always done this, they are 9 and 7 now. They just have to wait for the big tree presents, doesn’t take long.

As a child in the 70s we had a pillowcase at the end of our bed. Presents were put in when we were asleep and they weren’t wrapped.
When I had my own chn I bought red pillowcases and sewed on sequin initials. They then left them by the fireplace with the mince pie malarkey . I also wrapped the gifts which was something I regretted every year as I got different paper to tell whose gift was whose and it had to be different to gifts under the tree!! The pillowcases had all their Santa gifts. We put our gift to them under the tree, hence the different paper.

Oh they came down to pillowcases and opened in turn until all gone while DH and I had tea. Them we’d give them our present Then we’d all have breakfast and get dressed before family arrive or we went to theirs for dinner. Presents would be opened after dinner.

Our children receive the main thing on their list in their stocking. We have the stockings downstairs and they lean against the main gift.
There are further gifts under the tree which can’t be opened until after dinner. Once the children have their main gift, they seem to find it easier to wait.

We do also have a mini stocking which is on the bed and mainly filled with sweets, chocolates and little novelties. The children are always excited to get these open first as I’ve a rule that the first thing tasted on Christmas Day should be chocolate 🤣

This set up was a bit of a compromise. I used to have my stocking on my bed as a child and loved that heavy feeling when I woke up whereas my husband had his downstairs and it had all the gifts, big and small in. This works for us.

How big was his stocking to have all his gifts in?! Our stockings aren’t much bigger than actual stocking size, so all main gifts are wrapped and under the tree. Stockings are just things like a pot of slime, hair accessories, lip gloss, chocolate coins etc. My kids say they’re the best bit of Christmas!