Should i compromise?

sianb84

When I was a kid we had a stcoking and one big main present from santa. That presents was a big toy or bike we wanted, for example one year I got a syvalian family windmill and my brother got the ghostbusters big house thing! These were put in our room - except if it was a bike!! these wouldn't be wrapped and we would empty the stocking and play with the big toy in the early hours.

In the morning we all wake up or in the case of my parent be woken up! then would go downstairs where all presents would be under the tree. Someone usually myself or my brother would sit closest to the tree and pick up the presents one at a time and pas them to the person who would open it while the next present was being handed out.

Once all the presents were opened we would have breakfast if we wanted it and play while my mum would start the dinner.

Spendless

As a child we didn't have stockings. We certainly had 'stocking fillers' presents in addition to the main pressie, but however small it was it was wrapped and went under the tree. DH never had stockings either.

That is how I started when my eldest was born, but when he was 3 or 4 he wanted a stocking (cos he'd seen it on tv:D ) so I put one on the outside of his door, when I wake up. The reason for this I didn't want him awake an hour after I'd gone to bed and realising Santa must have been and wanting to go downstairs.

Last year was fine cos I woke first, but I am wondering how to work it this year. Santa might have to start leaving them elsewhere.

Knelley

Wow, everyone does it so different!!

Santas pressies are seperate from all the rest. That means the kids know pressies from Santa and the rest under the tree are from friends/relatives:) We have 2 sofas - Santa leaves a bundle of unwrapped pressies on each sofa for my 2 boys. God help us if we have another....need to invest in another sofa Yes, Santa doesn't wrap in our house. I think this ruins the fun:) AND I know others will disagree.

I think it is all down to what you associate as 'being Christmas' as a child and no way is right or wrong.

I will say one thing tho. Do NOT change how you do it for your children! I had this done to me when I was 12. My father got a new girlfriend and 'Santa' wrapped pressies that year for the first time ever. It was the worst Christmas ever and the end of my childhood. I always questioned why my christmas had to change....don't do that to your kids:)

elona

I agree that is seems unfair for your family traditions to have to change for your daughters just because your partner wants things done "his way".

Depends how inflexible he is - but he cannot just change everything so he (as an adult) is happy.

mummysaver

We do stockings on the ends of the children's beds, and they bring them into us to open, then we all go downstairs where all pressies are left under the tree. I shove any from family and friends right to the back and the pressies from us are at the front, but instead of putting them in piles, which would make life easier for us with four children, but would probably cause a riot as the little one's pile would be bigger than the others, not cos she gets more, but cos pressies for 5 year olds tend to be bigger than things that 12 year olds like even if they cost the same, instead I use a different wrapping paper for each child, means that we can easily pick out pressies, and oh or me can sit and easily pass them out even with a hangover from the night before!

Perhaps a compromise of putting everything under the tree, but using a diff paper for each of the children and one of you passing out the pressies might work?

HopeElizzy

piratess wrote:

anyway we have a son between us 20 months and he said i dont want him to do it your way i want him to do it how we always did!, as its better! ... now do i change and put the pressies all under the tree???? ... or do i stick to my guns? ... my Dds are 12 and 8 !

help! .. i can sence a row brewing! xxx

My family do something similar to yours and my OH's do something similar to your OH's. It needs to be a compromise as we've found since we've had children. Your OH needs to understand this is nothing to do with making him feel comfortable it's about whether the children are ok. Your girls are still quite young and it's very unfair to change the way they do things now. Perhaps you can think of a way of combining ideas rather than your OH's traditions dominating everything.

We started having stockings with Santa presents in and the relatives/friends under the tree when we had our 2 children - neither me nor OH did this before. We do however give out the presents so everyone has their pile of presents (my family) and take it in turns to open them (OH's family).
Good Luck, hope you ALL have a lovely christmas :xmassmile

PercyPig

Hi piratess

Hope you and OH manage to come to a solution here, its all so tricky isn't it? My OH always thinks the way his family did things is the best way ever and refuses to compromise, everything has to be their way

When I was little, we did things the same way as you. The three of us sisters used to wake up and feel a loaded stocking on the end of the bed, I can still remember the excitement now. We used to sit in bed opening the stockings all shouting to each other through the walls about what we had got. Then we would race downstairs and find three huge piles of presents in the living room set out for us. Father Christmas always used to leave the piles in the same place - one end of the sofa for my eldest sister, the chair for my middle sister and the floor for me (being the youngest).

Such happy days :j

sophiesmum_2

I would say that no ones customs are better than anyone elses just different BUT your family have been doing it this way for 12 years, why should they have to change to accommodate a grown man.
Kids like routine and familiarity and if it were my family i would carry on as I have always done.
Why not think of another custom that you could introduce perhaps xmas eve that is one you both decide on and make it your own, but don't change things for your girls after doing it for so long.

Just my opinion.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
sophiesmum

delhome

your 20 month will probably have too much fun with the paper and opening everyone elses prezzies. Tell you oh that there has to be some leeway somewhere. But i would imagine that its the first proper year that your lil1 will be opening and ripping prezzies and running around etc it wont matter about how things are done.

hobbesy_2

Only just reading this have I actually realised that we do our christmas now different to how i had it as a child. We have two little ones who will be one and three at Christmas and have enjoyed having this early part before they really know whats going on to set up our own traditions. We have actually taken a lot of our ideas from this site when we heard parts of peoples traditions we thought were particularly special.

Basically stockings upstairs, all other presents in a big mess under the tree. We love the look on his face when he comes down to see a huge pile of prezzies and make sure we spread thme out so the pile looks even bigger than it really is. At his age he's just as excited about us opening our presents as he is about opening his own.

None of our presents are from santa. We and family/friends buy presents and then give them to santa to give out on christmas eve if he thinks we've been good enough. One of our little traditions is that we go out and buy some presents for those less fortunate and we didn't like the idea that he thought children who didn't get many presents hadn't been good. So, we explained that its just some families haven't got much money (yeah like we have! lol) so we buy some extra for father christmas to take round. He loves this idea of making other boys and girls happy and really got into it this year and even asked father christmas if he'd got the extra presents when he saw him at the weekend.


My point before I started waffling is that we've made our own traditions different to both of our families. Obviously this is a special first christmas for all of you, but different in that your girls are already used to one set of traditions. I agree don't change things completely as it wouldn't be fair to the girls but see what little bits you can tweak. I don't know maybe have all the presents together under the tree but have each childs presents wrapped in their own really obvious colour so they can still see a whole load of toys they know are for them if that makes sense

Keri -x-