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Original poster

do you let you children open their presents as they see relatives? advice needed

110 replies

emily05 · 19/12/2005 18:18

all of dh relatives and a couple of mine want ds to open his presnts when we see them over christmas. Nobody ever bothers visiting us, so we have to ferry around. so ds will get the majority of his presents on the 26th, 27th and 28th of dec. He will have about 10 presents on christmas day (mainly from us)

How do I explain this with regards to father christmas? does father christmas leave presents at everybody elses house for ds? what do you all do with regards to presents? are the ones you get your children the only ones they open on christmas day?

Hope that this makes sense x

OP posts:
cupcakesbakingonanopenfire · 19/12/2005 18:20

we say that the presents in his stocking are from Father Christmas. All the others are from real people.

JeNOELum · 19/12/2005 18:20

The only ones we open at home are from Father Christmas and usually from my parents (who live quite far away) and a couple of pressies from us (mummy and daddy!).

We then go to inlaws and open other pressies there, but these are not from FC they are from the relative - all the relatives very kindly go to inlaws on Christmas day too!

HTH

Hulababy · 19/12/2005 18:22

All of our presents are opened on Christmas Day. There is one specially chosen for her By Father Christmas, but he does also deliver all of her other presents, chosen for her by relatives.

Grown up presets are all opened on Christmas Day here too. But FC doesn't deliver those ones!

WigWamBam · 19/12/2005 18:22

We say that all the presents are from real people, but that they have to go to Santa to be delivered. Sometimes Santa likes to leave the presents at Grandma's house though, because he knows that children like to have presents on more than one day and he knows that Grandma likes to see dd opening her presents.

I'm not sure how long it will be before dd sees through this though!

Twiglett · 19/12/2005 18:22

confused

father christmas brings ONE present, or a piece of coal dependent on goodness of recipient

all other presents are from whoever bought them

charlietherednosedpussy · 19/12/2005 18:23

Ours open them as people give them them. Unless the giver wants them under the tree, in which case they open them Xmas morning along with Santas ones too.
Means they get time to play with everything instead of opening it and flinging it to the sideby present number 13.

Twiglett · 19/12/2005 18:23

I have never, till mumsnet, realised that anyone thought that all presents are delivered by father christmas

where does that idea come from, and how have I missed it?

JeNOELum · 19/12/2005 18:24

Father Christmas leaves a sackful of pressies for my 2!

WigWamBam · 19/12/2005 18:26

Twiglett, my presents were always delivered by Father Christmas, so were dh's, so that's the way we decided to carry it on.

Note that they're only delivered by him ... he's not getting the credit for chosing, buying and wrapping them as well

kalexcelsis · 19/12/2005 18:28

Actually I think that it really helps not to have heaps of prezzies to open straight away, they end up with so much they don't know what to do first, and then just end up bugging you

My kids will open up things in Xmas morning from SAnta and DP and I.

Mum will bring up one pressie in the afternoon,

We will go to DP's family in the evening, another couple of prezzies.

Boxing Day, sister and her DH and my nephew will be there, pressies from them, and Oh look, Santa left a stocking there too !!!

On boxing day they go to their dad's and I have no idea what happens there, but santa is sure to have left something there,

I actually really worry about them being spoilt vbut at 4 & 7 I spend a nominal anmount, one present off the the list, and little things.

I think that they really love that the presents just keep coming, a few every day over a couple of days rather that a massive fest.

I have rmabled but i hope I helped

zippimistletoes · 19/12/2005 18:31

Father Christmas fills a stocking left at the end of the bed with one or two things next to it if they didn't fit in it, tangerine (satsuma these days) in toe plus selection box

all other presents are wrapped and put under the tree with gift tagsa on from mum , auntie etc

these are opened theoretically with late morning coffee and biscuits but this tends to get pushed back into the preprandial vicinity

in the past one had ot wait until after the queens speech to open them

if visitors come or are visited after christmas then presents are opened straightaway

roisin · 19/12/2005 19:13

In our house FC has nothing to do with the majority of presents, and certainly not the ones from relatives.

We've always encouraged the kids to open the presents in the presence of the purchasers. When they were little this helped them to realise who the presents were from, and now they are both pretty good at saying "Oh, wow, it's just what I've always wanted", even if they are thinking "Oh no, a duplicate version of something I never wanted in the first place!" It also means the givers get a personal face-to-face thank you, which can excuse the fact that sometimes it takes a while before all the thank you letters get written!

ChunkerXmasCake · 19/12/2005 19:16

Father Christmas doesn't get all the credit for Christmas in this house, no bloody way!

He does stockings. That's it. Think it stops children expecting out-of-budget presents when they're bigger if they know that Mum and Dad (and aunties, uncles, cousins, etc) have to spend actual cash to buy them things, rather than elves making them in Lapland.

How would you do thank you letters if children didn't know who things were from anyway?

Hulababy · 19/12/2005 19:19

Twiglett - was the way it was done by both my family and DH's family. But FC has never got the full credit for presents though. FC simply delivers them, having had them sent to him from relatives/friends. FC does bring a special present all of his own too though.

TroutSprout · 19/12/2005 19:22

Father Christmas brings the pressies we get them (although my oldest now knows that it is really us now)...all the others come tagged from whoever sent them and then 'thankyou cards are sent to those people. They get quite a few between xmas and new year....when we go and visit our families.

kalexcelsis · 19/12/2005 19:23

My kids think that Santa, sends me a bill after xmas.

It was because i couldn't afford loads and xdh, spent loads, i had to come up with a suitable excuse.

my excuse is i spend the whole day with them, and we all sit down to a lovely {maybe} lunch. and they get loads of pressies there and sat in front of the DVD machine, with a ham sandwich , so I cannot compete on a pressie front, but I know which xmas theyt will remember I hope!!!!!!

OnTheJA9thDayOfChristmas · 19/12/2005 19:24

wow - i'm new to santa delivering ALL the pressies too! Interesting!

Just as others have said, i think it's good to spread the pressies out. I think too much at once is overwhelming. Plus, if los get pressies from other people then it helps them to associate the giver with the present iyswim.

SKYLERtnightholynight · 19/12/2005 19:30

Gosh I have never heard of FC delivering all the presents either. He gives presents in a stocking that are opened in the morning. Cheap/small gifts but something to get a child through till lunch , including the satsuma and choc coins.
All presents given before Christmas Day go under the tree. Presents given after Christmas Day can be opened right away.
We wait until after lunch and the washing up is done before opening the rest of the presents and ......we all sit around and open one at a time so everyone sees who got what etc. Is this really mean??
I say all this as this is what happened for me and so what I intend to do for my dd's but in actual fact they are only 2.5 and 6 mths so who knows what we will do when they are older. I hope I will stick to this format though...

mumfor1sttime · 19/12/2005 19:53

When I was a child Santa delivered all the presents.
We didnt have any presents under the tree. If any presents were 'delivered' to us by relatives - they were 'sent to Santa' so that he 'could deliver them' to us on Christmas Eve!

When visiting Nan and Grandad on Christmas day - Santa would know about this as my Dad would 'phone' Santa to tell him to deliver the presents to Nannys house!

What I didnt understand was why my Dad couldnt just 'phone santa' to tell him that I had changed my mind what thing I wanted for Christmas on Christmas Eve!!

OhlittletownofEIDSVOLD · 19/12/2005 20:24

growingup - we got one present from father Christmas and the rest from family etc...

My dds will not be getting a present from Father Christmas but from dh and I and so on.

THey are too little to realise about father Christmas and so we are making the most of it.

FrenchKissUnderMistletoeGirl · 19/12/2005 20:33

all my presents used to come from FC too, and that's what we do with dd, and she's happy with it (she's 6 1/2)

we're obviously in the minority though.....
I tell her it's a french thing as most people here seem to have pressies under the tree long before Xmas day!

morningpaper · 19/12/2005 20:39

Those who say Father Christmas brings presents, do you not get your children to write/draw thank-you cards for the people that bought them?

There is no Father Christmas in this house I'm afraid. However, she has been receiving letters from fairies in her advent calendar. Far less sinister.

PantomimEDAMe · 19/12/2005 20:40

All my presents used to come from FC. Spoils the magic otherwise, surely?

PantomimEDAMe · 19/12/2005 20:41

Oh, but presents from uncles/aunts were definitely from them. Had no problem with Father Christmas bringing all the presents at home and relatives giving me presents when I saw them.

santabops · 19/12/2005 20:44

we do what wigwambam does.

also helps with shopping. so if they see me buying something, we leave it out for santa's helpers to collect overnight, so santa can wrap and deliver it on christmas day!