When to open presents?

[chilimak]

On Christmas eve the kids open a few presnts, but there is tradition involved. Every year the Christmas eve presents opened are pj's from us (to wear to bed that night of course), their annual ornament from me (gets hung on the tree immediately), a present from Grandma who is 1200 miles away, and 1 toy from us. Grandma usually sends us a family dvd and a gift card to wal mart. We usually use it to buy each of the kids a board game and wrap them from grandma. This year however I think I will buy 1 game they can all play from grandma and a small gift each from grandma. The kids are all old enough now to play most games together. Nathaniel is only 5, but he loves to play Life and Monopoly with us. We just read for him and tell him how much money to give people. He does pretty well.

 

Then, Christmas morning we make the kids wait till 8:00 am to wake us up. Mean, I know, lol. They get their stockings first, then we start with the pile under the tree. However, we don't just tear into the stuff. We open gifts 1 at a time and actually watch each person open every present. We go around from youngest to oldest until all gifts are opened. This is a tradition I grew up on and I enjoy doing it with my kids. It makes the gift opening last longer and we get to watch the person's reaction to the gifts. I love it.

 

Elena

[DealFreak05]

One thing on Christmas Eve; the rest on Christmas morning.

[mgmckny]

Then, Christmas morning we make the kids wait till 8:00 am to wake us up. Mean, I know, lol. They get their stockings first, then we start with the pile under the tree. However, we don't just tear into the stuff. We open gifts 1 at a time and actually watch each person open every present. We go around from youngest to oldest until all gifts are opened. This is a tradition I grew up on and I enjoy doing it with my kids. It makes the gift opening last longer and we get to watch the person's reaction to the gifts. I love it.

 

Elena

And I thought we were mean to make them wait until 7:00am. ( LOL) Growing up, it was my job to entertain my little brothers until the sun came up (they would be up at 4am and as I grew older, we were sometimes in bed less than an hour when they would be tiptoeing into my room with flashlights). I'm going to try the 1 at a time thing this year since the gifts are smaller in size (but not in price...). Usually dh and I watch them open their stuff from us (Santa hasn't wrapped in our house--that came from dh's side) and then we open ours.