opening presents at party or not?

[bluespiral]

I know that the usual thing at a children's party is to open the presents afterwards, and that does seem sensible.

However...DD is having her 5th birthday party at home, on her actual birthday, and it's just a little tea party with only her 3 best friends coming.

So from a practical point of view opening presents wouldn't be difficult - but should I still go by the "rule" and open afterwards? Parents are staying if that's relevant!

Yeah let her open them its 3 little friends not a whole bunch of kids

As its only a small amount of children then it's fine to open them there and then.

Thanks, that's what I thought but just wasn't sure!

Oh, I'd agree, definitely open them!
I prefer it when the child opens them actually, as they get to say thank you, the giver gets to see the reaction... And I'm sure the children will be interested to see what she's got, and to play with it maybe.
It only seems to be the done thing at at home parties, though.

It's fine, just make sure that you/she bigs up all the presents, not just her favourite.

For a whole class party I'd leave and open at home, it would take too much of the party time to open/thank when the children just want to run around and play.

For a small at home do I'd let her open them.

Great thank you

blue my kids have a lovely tradition which my DC1 "stole" from one of her friends at a long ago birthday party - it works well with parties at home with up to about 10 friends and we do it every time one of our 3 have a party at home, it works like this:

As each friend arrives they are invited to hide the present they have bought in the living room, with birthday child staying outside the room and any guests who have already arrived staying in the room.

Once all guests have arrived birthday child searches for presents, with guests shouting "warmer" or "colder" etc. as the birthday child gets closer/ further away from a present.

Once a present is found it is unwrapped and exclaimed over, and then the hunt begins again, until all presents are found.

Works really, really well as it breaks up the opening, rather than opening one after another, plus it becomes the first party game in itself and kills at least a few minutes :o

We've done it loads of times, with 3 kids and a local tradition for parties at home, and the kids all love it - lots of all our kids' friends now do it too, though I think the mum of DD's best friend was the first to do it locally at her 4th or 5th birthday party 6 or 7 or so years ago - we will be doing it again for DC3's 5th birthday party in a couple of weeks :o