For those who celebrate
When did you open presents?
At my mother and stepdad’s, after breakfast.
My biological father: had to wait til Christmas night when the whole family came over. (was tough for a 6 year old to not have anything to open until 6 in the evening).
My ex-husband: after coming home from Christmas Eve at his parents - 2 am, then off to his parents’ again at 5 am…
Other.
My husband and I exchange presents on Christmas Eve after dinner. We do the family thing with his parents on Christmas Day, usually in the afternoon while dinner is cooking.
Christmas Eve after Candlelight Service.
Round 1 over coffee and coffee cake.
Then coronary inducing fat laden breakfast
Round 2 follows.
We have 4 young kids with lots of relatives and we celebrate Christ’s birth through gluttony and excessiveness.
Very early Christmas morning, because we always used to jump out of bed as soon as it started to get light. Sunrise on Christmas Day in Sydney is at 5.43am and it’s light from about 5.00am.
Nothing’s changed over the years and the children are still up at the crack of dawn. It’s way, way before breakfast.
I voted Christmas Morning, but I should have voted all of the above. (except the midnight mass one, since our celebration is purely secular.) Our kids are grown now, but we have a firm tradition. One randomly selected small present Christmas eve. They still don’t want to see the presents under the tree until the morning, so we shut the door to the living room. Then presents, breakfast in the living room of butterhorn crescents, then more presents, then shrimp, cheese and smoked meats, then more presents, then a break for dinner, a roast, and then more presents.
Yes it is sick. My wife’s family tradition, not my fault.
The rugrats get to open one on Christmas Eve. Usually the smallest gift. The rest get opened as soon as everyone is up, and believe me, the rugrats make sure that is early.
We may skip the Christmas Eve gift this year. It looks like my niece and sister, who live with me, aren’t getting much of anything this year.
My childhood memories of Christmas are so good. Nuclear family - gift exchange in the morning after/during a light finger-friendly breakfast. Then head out around 1pm to Grandma’s (now uncle’s) house where the extended family on my dad’s side meets. (About 30 people or more.) When I was a kid and tons of us cousins were all young and toy-age, man, the tree was buried by about 3 feet of gifts extending out in a 6 foot radius.
There aren’t nearly as many 2nd cousins these days, (only one of us had more than one baby and some of us seem to have chosen child-free lives) and youngest first cousin is about 25 now, so the tree isn’t nearly as ridiculous as it used to be. But I digress. “Dinner” first around 3pm and then crazy gift exchange after that.
When we were younger, it was Christmas morning before breakfast. We were allowed to open our stockings before Mom and Dad got up, but presents under the tree had to wait for them, usually around 7-7:30am. I never heard of opening things on Christmas Eve until I was much older; it’s not done in my family.
As we got to college and stopped being so excited by Christmas, it got later and later. I had to be hauled out of bed at noon for a couple of years to open gifts before we headed to the grandparents’. For the last few years, we’ve just gone to see them first and not even bothered with our presents until 8-9pm Christmas night.
Growing up, it was Christmas morning. We usually had sweet rolls of some sort and so my mom would put them in to bake while we were opening presents. We always had to wait until everyone was up before going out and we weren’t allowed to wake anyone up on purpose, but waking them up “accidentally-on purpose” was totally allowed.
With my family now, we usually see Suburban Plankton’s family on Christmas Eve and exchange gifts with them then. Christmas morning while the breakfast pie is cooking the three of us open our gifts. Then we exchange with my family that evening.
One present on Christmas Eve, the rest on Christmas morning.
All of the above. My immediate in-laws want to have dinner and presents the Sunday before. He and I will exchange gifts the night before Christmas Eve, we go to his extended family Christmas Eve. Then we get up at o’ dark hundred Christmas morning to drive to my family. We hit Mom ad Dad’s a little before 10 and do breakfast and presents with them, then go to Grandma’s for dinner and presents. Then in the evening we hit an aunt’s house and do one more round of presents.
Christmas morning, we would have to make and bring my parents coffee in bed, then we could go down and do our stockings. We couldn’t touch the presents until they woke up and came down to the tree.
When we did this last year (with slightly different options), Christmas morning kicked Christmas Eve’s butt (and rightly so).
I voted Christmas morning since that’s the norm but…
Growing up, we used to do a single present on Christmas Eve and the rest in the morning.
Last year, we did it my wife’s old way. You open all the gifts and have your fancy dinner late Christmas Eve and then spend Christmas Day lounging around in your pajamas, playing with your new swag.
My folks were smart, and made sure the stockings were stuffed with enough little toys and fruit to keep 4 kids occupied until 7 a.m. OMG I swear the longest time in the universe is the stretch between waking and 7 a.m. on Christmas morn. >.<
Now, with our boys, it’s still Christmas morning…but we do silly jammies and t-shirts the night before, to take the edge off, lol.
I voted “after breakfast” but it’s really during breakfast. Mum and Dad come over about 8am and I serve up a huge fruit salad with lashings of fresh cream which we eat while the kid passes around presents and we open them one at a time.
Mum and Dad will have opened one present each at home and this Christmas Eve I’m paying off the last bit of the PSP the kid’s had on lay-by (she will have paid about 3/4 by then) so she can play with it Christmas morning.
When I was a kid it was exactly as **sitchensis **& **chizzuk **described; the stocking the slow ticking of the clock before the folks woke up and had their coffee and staggered downstairs…
Up to the age of 8 we did the usual dawn frenzy, but since then my Mum’s worked every Christmas morning (parents started a zoo, so someone needs to be there to feed the critters regardless) so we had to wait 'til about 2pm when she gets back, before we started the present exchange. It pretty much repeats the next day as well though, when we visit the extended family 90 miles away, though that involves less presents, 'cos we’re supposedly all adults now.
Since I was about 7, I’ve played Christmas music on our piano to wake everyone (mom, dad, half-sister). It’s always been during the morning, but as I’ve grown up, the timing of that has gradually gotten later. I can remember being up at 4 AM one year, waiting to play piano at 6 because I was so excited. Now that seems insane.
After my little concert, it’s my job to grab our stockings and take them into my parents’ bedroom. Then we open all the gifts in there.
Following stockings, it’s breakfast time. No particular breakfast foods are eaten, but my mom and dad might start cooking part of the meal. Then, after breakfast, we open what’s under the tree.