Present Opening Etiquette

thisuseridistakenagain

me and my brother give to my mam and dad and watch them open the ones we bought, then we open theirs while they watch. Then we give to each other after dinner, and they do the same.

esmf73

This is probably going to sound very old fashioned - but it worked in our family when I was young, so I'm going to try hard to get it working in my family now. (Two boys 5 and 4). In the morning we open our stockings (OH and I put a limit on our stockings - say 5 pounds and buy all sorts of wierd stuff!). Then we go to church or on a walk whilst the lunch is cooking.

Have lunch & clear it away. THEN we open our presents. Someone (usually a parent and a child) sits near the tree where the presents are and hands out the presents - this is for X and reads out the address label. Everyone gets a present to open - but they open at their own pace!! Whichever parent is sitting by the tree (usually me) keeps an eye on who has a present and I pass on to the child (who helps me read the gift tag) to hand out.

This way I can keep a rough note as to who gets what in my family so that when I write the thank you letters I can mention the gift. The kids - well its normally a free for all - but they get easily sidetracked by playing with the most recently unwrapped gift.

Plus with christmas music playing in the background my youngest will get up and dance sometimes in the middle of all the wrapping paper!!! I know it sounds crazy, but this works for us and means that relatives can travel to join us (or vice versa) and the older members of the family are also involved.

Bargain_Rzl

esmf73 - sounds just lilke all my childhood Christmases

Kylie

DaisyMoo wrote: »

You can buy a special apple scented spray from your local vet / pet store and spray a fine mist over the presents you dont want naughty kitty to paw at. It's harmless but gives a scent that cats dont like very much so they leave things alone (also good for spraying on legs of furniture to stop them using table legs as scratching posts)

I used it in previous years and it worked a treat - but i also put a present under the tree for kitty, that I didn't spray but put some cat nip under the wrapping paper - that one didn't last til Christmas Day!!

This is an excellent idea!! May also work on the side of my bed she is shredding (at 4am...)!!! Thank you so much for this - will look into it today! :T

DaisyMoo - you may have a BIG impact on our quality of life!!!

NEgirl

We have 4 boys so i couldnt imagine them sitting waiting after a whole month of build up to take turns opening presents.
We get up and all sit at the top of the stairs waiting for daddy to check if Santa has been. He tells us yes and has set up the camera etc and we all go downstairs to the seperate piles of presents waiting on the sofas/floor etc.
The boys then sit amongst their pressies opening them one after another while me and dh watch them with our coffee and camera - the looks on their faces is worth far more than any present is so i dont need to see each reaction to what they have received - they yell and run to give us a hug and a kiss every few minutes with loads of THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOUs all the while The get practical pressies too, smellies etc and i would hate to think they had to show suprise and be all 'wow thank you so much just what i wanted' just because we are sitting taking turns and watching them before the next one opens theirs - i know that probably doesnt happen but its a thought that crossed my mind.
We are happy with the complete randomness of our Christmas day, all the pressies are open by around 9 am, we have breakfast, the kids play all day and we all just chill and eat when its ready etc...... bliss

Bargain_Rzl

NEgirl wrote: »

We have 4 boys so i couldnt imagine them sitting waiting after a whole month of build up to take turns opening presents.

I think the clue to the rest of the sentence is the bit in the bold text - it always worked for us when I was little (2 girls and a boy) because my parents made sure it wasn't overly hyped in the preceding few weeks. Don't get me wrong, we were always mega excited on Christmas morning (and tore open the little presents from our stockings the moment we woke up) but the main present-giving session was reserved for the afternoon, and was only one of the many parts of the day's celebrations.

But I'm not criticising your way

aliasojo

Bargain_Rzl wrote: »

I think the clue to the rest of the sentence is the bit in the bold text - it always worked for us when I was little (2 girls and a boy) because my parents made sure it wasn't overly hyped in the preceding few weeks.

I would love to avoid this but it's impossible. The school have various things on in the run up to xmas (started 2 weeks ago would you believe :rolleyes:), the local community association have street fayres and santa visits, daughter's friends come round with tales of what they're doing/what they hope to get etc and really the only way to keep my one calm would be to take her to a cave for a month.

NEgirl

Its ok i know youre not critisising - everyone has their own ways

Ditto Aliasojo, thats exactly what i meant - the schools build up with fairs and parties and then theres the visiting family to drop off pressies that we wont see over the christmas period etc There is so much sadness, doom, gloom and waiting in the world ready for them when theyre old enough to worry about those kinds of things, right now im glad they have at least one month a year where all that seems to be forgotten

Bargain_Rzl

Just out of interest, do your children go to a church school? (this @ aliasojo). I went to a church primary and I must say they did VERY well at not hyping Christmas up prematurely. My secondary school wasn't a church school, but once you're at secondary school it's a much more academic environment anyway, so you don't notice as much. Towards the end of term, (i.e. in December) there was prep going on for carol concerts etc, but I don't remember ever getting hyped up about gifts at that stage at all.

I do think it's quite nice to have decorations, especially lights in public places, up quite early as it brightens things up once the nights start drawing in (was walking through Central London yesterday evening and smiled at the huge reindeer made out of lights in Covent Garden) but I think that's more to do with winter generally rather than Christmas. It's really just the gifts/conspicuous consumption thing that I think it's destructive to spread out for too long, particularly because it must make it very difficult for parents who would rather not get their kids hyped up too early.

DKLS

We start with a champagne breakfast then open our presents in front of each other, over more champagne.
Then head over to Mils for dinner and watch the kids open their small mountain of gifts, then the adults open theirs then its time to eat