Present Opening Etiquette

char22

In our house we all open a pressie one at a time, its always me my partner and two kiddies, normally takes about 1 or 2 hours but we have a coffee and fag break in between:T

aliasojo

We're not ones for a 'structured' present opening, personally I think it's a shame making younger children wait when they are so full of excitement and joy. My family is a bit older now though so things do tend to go at a slower pace.

My feeling is that presents are chosen and given to please the recipient, I'm not sure it's necessary to view them opening their gift ... is it not enough to find out later if it was liked or not? Hope I didn't offend anyone saying that, it just seems that by making an issue of the unwrapping, it becomes less about the recipient and more about the giver?

jetty

I like to see the person i give a gift to open it I like to make people happy and give thoughtful gifts, but i also like to see the appreciation and happiness on their faces

jackomdj

aliasojo wrote: »

We're not ones for a 'structured' present opening, personally I think it's a shame making younger children wait when they are so full of excitement and joy. My family is a bit older now though so things do tend to go at a slower pace.

My feeling is that presents are chosen and given to please the recipient, I'm not sure it's necessary to view them opening their gift ... is it not enough to find out later if it was liked or not? Hope I didn't offend anyone saying that, it just seems that by making an issue of the unwrapping, it becomes less about the recipient and more about the giver?

We are structured, I even have a note book to write what other people have given both children. I like to know what people have given them so we can do personalised thankyous - we get presents from about 18 other people so I would forget if I did not write it all down. I am not so fussed about seeing each item we are giving them (except the "best" bits).

For the people with little ones who do not take turns how do you know who has given what to your children??

motherhen2234

We're all allegedly grown ups and we have two present routines. The first set is at our home where in the morning me and my other half open our presents to each other. Its usually after breakfast. Then after lunch when his mum is here we open our presents with her / from her.

At my parents is more of a routine inherited from when I was younger. I'm essentially the postman and pass out all the presents from under the tree. We then take it turns to open our present. If someone has more than some else we get them to "double up" so everyone finishes roughly around the same time. Although I do always open one last lol :j

kjmtidea

Normally it is a free for all, jump in type of affair but last year one of my children opened their main present (nintendo ds) whilst I was taking a photo of one of my other children so I didn't get to see him open it. I was really disappointed so this year I am doing it differently, I have four children who are 8, 5, 4 and 2 - they can all open one present at a time and I will take photos of them all together. Well that's the plan!

nannyboo1

ikkleosu wrote: »

Growing up i always had a lot more pressies under the tree than my brothers (becuase I was a girl and all my friends gave each other presents, unlike boys!) but no-one was ever bothered, it was justa running joke and eventually it would get to a point where Mum would pass me a bundle.

This sounds like our house now lol.

From being tiny we would open our presents one at a time. My brother and I would take it in turn to get a pressie from under the tree and hand it out to whoever it was.

We have no children but my mum has always come up to our house form Christmas Breakfast as Dad was a bit of a Scrooge (If he had his way he wouldn't open his pressies as he always knew what was in each one bless him).

Here the pressies are taken from under the tree after breakfast and put in a pile next to each person and then we take it in turn opening them one at a time and even now it is usually me left with a pile of pressies after everyone else has finished.

I have always made a list of what I receive as I always wrote thank you letters. Even to a few years ago I had an aunt who expected a thank you note.

Fishcake_Random

On Xmas day at my familys we open things one at a time in turn. Then at tea time we have a tree present which is traditionally a daft pressy to keep you entertained for the rest of the evening. Puzzles or silly games etc, or nail varnish sets for the girls.
On Boxing day at OH`s family its a free for all and no one can work out what they have received from who, in some cases there are even squabbles if two or three people have had similar things like dressing gowns in different colours etc. I hate it to!!

My mum and dad said when me and my bro were younger they would just have a few token gifts during the day and let the kids get on with it and then have a "present session" when we were in bed.
Might be an idea.
x x x x

dogcat_2

Well, we don't have any young children....my youngest is 12...So we get up at around 8-8.30 come downstairs...I usually hand the pressies to my daughter who then hands them to everyone else....one at a time...and we all watch as that person opens their pressie...and so it goes on...I usually wait and open all mine together at the end...as I don't want to miss anything!

Bargain_Rzl

When I was growing up, my parents would put all the presents under the tree after we'd gone to bed on Christmas Eve, so they'd be there in the morning as if by magic. We'd have little bits and pieces to open in our stockings in the morning, but the presents under the tree were reserved for the afternoon. After having our Christmas dinner we would have to wait until my parents had done the washing up (boy, was I glad when we got a dishwasher ) and had a glass of Baileys, then we would all sit round the tree and Dad would read out the labels on the presents and hand them out one by one, in no particular order (though he'd try and make sure that the distribution was fairly even) and we'd wait until the previous present had been opened (and giver + contents of present had been logged on Mum's list of what thank-you letters we needed to write - LOL!) before the next one was given out.

Nowadays it's more or less the same, even though my brother, sister and dad spend Christmas with their partners and their families, so I go to my mum's and spend the day with two overgrown children - Mum (56) and the dog (9) The presents don't come out under the tree until lunchtime as the dog gets overexcited, and the gift-opening session tends to be punctuated by calls from other members of the family