Do you wrap Santa presents?

[El91]

Just wanting to see what everyone else does as my husband and I are in complete disagreement! Just to add we are from Northern Ireland and it is a common thing to not wrap Santa gifts, not sure if it’s the same in England etc!

We have a 2 year old and 4 year old and so far have never wrapped Santa presents as I never got them wrapped when I was a child. My husband always got his wrapped and says it takes the excitement away if the toys aren’t wrapped.

I loved them not being wrapped as a child and coming down and seeing loads of toys! But my husband says the best bit is opening each present and not knowing what it is.

My little girl has just turned 4 and this is her first Christmas proper knowing what’s going on so whatever we decide this year we have to stick to.

What does everyone else do??

I think my little girl is expecting Santa to leave presents wrapped below the tree as this is what she is seeing in movies etc. and I’m just worried that her expectation isn’t going to be met on Christmas morning if her presents aren’t wrapped!

I’m probably massively overthinking this 🤣🤣

In our house, always wrapped. I go by my English tradition. DH is Irish and in the not wrapped camp. I won this particular battle, but it's me who does the wrapping.

Also NI. My kids are 16 and 14.

We never had ours wrapped growing up. We each had a spot on the sofa for our gifts. DH had his wrapped and they each had a sack to put them in (I've always thought these were hideous but I'm remembering the ones you'd see in the 80s).

When the kids were very wee we did it my way. Everything was from santa. Dh bought a sack and I told him no way (it wasn't a nice one). My best friend does it the same way. As did my sisters for their kids.

Then when they got older my ds asked why their presents were never wrapped like in the movies. I told him that I thought it was a waste of wrapping paper and that I had asked santa not to wrap them, but if he wanted them wrapped I would tell santa to do so. He did. Ugh it was such a pain in the hole and i made the mistake on the first year of using the same wrapping paper for both kids. This might be fine in England where they get 3 presents each but you know what we're like over here (it's a 20 present each scenario) and I nearly lost my mind trying to remember what was what.

Anyway, I still wrap the presents. It's a massive pain. But I also colour code for each kid. With a 3rd colour for joint presents.

Don't do it. You'll regret it.

My Irish friends never wrap presents. I grew up with presents wrapped so wrap everything. Santa presents have different wrapping paper to our presents.

Santa wraps his present in brown parcel paper and we wrap in something different 🎅🏻

I’m in awe of the people wrapping stocking presents! I follow the Irish tradition of Santa presents (stocking plus the “main” Christmas presents) not being wrapped. Presents under the tree from parents, grandparents etc are wrapped. When my children ask (ie they see reference to “Santas wrapping station” or see movies with wrapped Santa Christmas presents) I tell them that Santa knows we’re eco conscious and therefore doesn’t wrap our presents 😁

Santa has his own wrapping paper for each DC. Different from gifts from us put under the tree. It takes ages but I know adult DC and teens appreciate it so we continue.

I wrap all presents but only small stocking gifts are from santa. I use a different wrapping paper for them and write the tags with my left hand and sign them 'from santa'

Even our cats stocking presents are wrapped here .. and I wonder why I’m bone exhausted 😩

Both.
Wrap easy to wrap toys that can not fit into the stocking.
(Use a special roll of paper)
Don't wrap complex gifts like bikes - tie with a piece of tinsel.
Fit small things in stocking without wrapping but wrap anything extra special within the stocking - like a watch.

We always wrapped all presents even the big ones like bikes and all came from Father Christmas… Now all presents still get wrapped… GC, parents and us used to get just one present from Father Christmas (DiL’s rules but it made sense, if forever they couldn’t afford more than one). Every other present they were told who they were from. Think the youngest GC was about 8 1/2 when he realised. Eldest GC did keep quiet when he found out.

Unwrapped here. Like you I have fond memories of coming down and seeing everything together unwrapped. Saves a lot of time and patience too!

Also Ni here
As a child unwrapped and laid on a sofa/armchair each..

My kids main present if have one (bike etc) unwrapped. Rest are wrapped and also placed at each sofa so present piles totally seperate. Stocking is set infront of each pile also filled. Stockings here are unwrapped as normally only food treats etc.

We generally dont have many presents under tree as gifts are given on the day when family visit

Everything was wrapped in my house and my DH growing up. For our DC I still wrap everything but gifts from Santa are in a different wrapping paper. Normally a plain one with a plain cardboard tag so it looked completely different to anything they’d seen in the shops in December.

they are the last presents i have left so i might wrap them, or i might run out of enthusiasm

Is it an Irish tradition to not wrap presents?

I'm from ROI. Santa brought most of our gifts. We'd get presents from family and they'd all be wrapped and under the tree. Our parents would give us 1 present. Everything else came from s
Santa. Santa would come and leave presents under the tree. These were all wrapped and had tags written by an old elf which is why the writing was so shaky. Stocking presents weren't wrapped, but these were usually small things like lollipops and satsumas.

We do the same for our children. Santa only wraps in plain red and gold wrapping paper - avoids any potential for someone else to have used the same paper.

Am interested in this! Irish DH never had gifts wrapped as a child and I saw that as really austere, I assumed a necessary measure in a large family - but joyless. Fwiw op, I’d never entertain not wrapping as an option - I feel sorry for DH though from reading this that it’s not as abnormal as I thought!!

Unwrapping is a big part of the fun.... trying to work out what it is, whose presents are whose etc.

This. Also Father Christmas' presents are small presents (they fit into a stocking) and would look rather sad unwrapped. The joy is them appearing overnight and the crinkle of paper.

To not have your family's presents wrapped would be so weird to me - you might as well give money.

I wrap them in festive tissue paper.

Usually we have the "main" Santa gift sitting out unwrapped and then the other stuff from him is wrapped and in a sack.

We wrap everything. Santa gives the stocking fillers and some low value gifts these things have from santa on a tag. The rest is from us but it's all delivered by santa. Use one colour santa paper for one child and another for the other so you don't need to out tags on everything.

The first year I wrapped my boys presents i thought it looked shit. Having a pile of unwrapped presents was so much more colourful and wow to me. Their wee faces would light up and they'd notice things one at a time. Honestly, it's much better that way.

Now we wrap. And I hate it.

It probably did stem from Irish parents having bigger families. It certainly wasn't austere because on the whole we give our kids far more at Christmas than the average English family do (12-25 presents each is probably very normal here but they wouldn't all have been toys). I've never actually counted, but my boys got/get loads. I often start shopping in July. And most of us do 'all from santa', which with hindsight was a bad idea, lol. And in general, kids stop believing here around 9-11... which I know... is late.

Thanks, that’s interesting. Yes I don’t mean austere in terms of lack of presents or the like - just for me and what I’m used to, wrapping and taking the time to make that fuss to make it exciting to open- is part of the splurging of xmas, if that makes sense. To me not wrapping would feel like not bothering, I found it austere in that way, assuming that the best thing is to wrap and was just no choice in a big family to do ‘the best thing’ because of how long etc it would take.

I can see from reading these replies it’s just my assumption and my ‘best thing’ is just my preference - some see the pile of unwrapped gifts as exciting and it’s just what’s normal to them. Which is what DH has expressed but I just found it weird! His family is a bit cold so I just assumed it was a reflection of that, but I stand corrected.

Ours were not wrapped as children (Scotland not NI) but I wrap for DS. I'm not sure why I do because I used to love the magic of my sister and I walking into the living room and seeing a pile of gifts each, taking it all in at once. The wrapping can sometimes almost lead to a "what's next" feeling as they plough through opening the gifts one by one.

I’m from Ireland and very surprised that your daughter said nothing gets wrapped as that’s certainly not the case here. I can only assume that she receives gifts in a gift bag with tissue paper in it rather than being wrapped in gift paper.

I only have one child and everything gets wrapped, however there’s no rights or wrongs about whether people wrap or not, each to their own.

I didn’t realise that many kids in UK get a stocking from Santa and main presents from parents, here everything is from Santa 🤶🏻.