Our kids (in their 20s) still don’t want to see the presents under the tree until Christmas morning.
The first stuff opened are stocking presents. Then come tree presents (the stuff we can reach, anyway) which are small things in bags hung on the tree.
Then someone selects presents from under the tree and distributes them to all there, and we take turns opening things. This continues until we are done. Since the presents don’t come out even, we ration ourselves, someone with more getting extra turns, so everyone finishes more or less at the same time.
When we’ve had gifts on Christmas morning, we often broke partway through (especially when we were older or grown) for cinnamon buns that were baking in the kitchen. Made the whole thing last a bit longer.
In my recollection, bro_mcl and I were generally pretty well-behaved during the gifts ritual, and understood the need to drag it out longer (nobody likes getting to the end, when there aren’t any more gifts). My parents may have a different recollection, of course.
We were allowed the stocking before breakfast, but then had to eat something. And no stockings without parents being awake. I am not a breakfast person at the most relaxed of times. I thought it was cruel and unusual punishment as a kid.
Now, I think it was brilliant. And if I ever have kids or am somehow in charge of kids on Christmas morning, I will enforce it. Heh heh heh.
There was no specific order on presents but it went around in a circle, one person at a time, open, next person, open, and on. It still works that way except that I’m a couple of thousand miles away from my parents, but if I was there, or at my grandma’s, that’s how it’d happen.
My own family, Californians, just rip into it all, and exclaim and give good thanks, a good sweet cacophany. I guess this must be some adaptation sans any sort of proper church type raising—yeeha westerners from way back.
Hon’s pretty Uber Scandinavian family: opens on Christmas Eve vs Xmas morning: everyone goes one by one in rounds opening, with nice accolades said for the gifts, and this takes for friggen ever, all night long. Tis very sweet to a point, but kinda drag past 10 on Christmas Eve. Being Scandinavian, ya don’t mess with their winter traditions, because they’ll lock your ass out in the cold.
Still, in my family, the procedure is: Everybody gets a gift. We open them one at a time, from youngest to oldest. Repeat until all gifts have been opened.
Toward the end, when some people have run out of gifts, the others may open more than one on a turn.
This year it’ll be just my partner and me. Since I have the tree we’ll start at my house, to include my two cats. Then we’ll go next door to his house, to include his two dogs.
(Rule #1 is that the dogs and cats are ***never ***together . . . way too much barking and hissing.)
Stockings and Santa gifts were out when we kids got up, we could open our stockings before our parents got up, but we didn’t (usually) play with the Santa gift until later. When the grown-ups are up then a Santa is appointed and everyone gets one gift per round and we open them at the same time. Rinse, repeat until all gifts are gone.
What Do We Do On Christmas Every Year?
Usually, on Christmas eve we go to my Nana’s house. We have a very very nontraditional Christmas. We each get our own box of whatever type of pizza we want. After we have all got our pizza’s my brothers and I go play video games with our aunt. When everyone is done with their pizza, the kids get to open their presents and the adults get some presents as well. We go home after about an hour and then on Christmas morning, we get our stockings from our parents and santa presents as well as wrapped presents. Our santa gifts aren’t wrapped BTW. Whenever we wake up, which is pretty early, we look at our unwrapped gifts and get our parents up. We either look for a Christmas pickle and whoever finds it gets to open their present first, or if we forget, we just decide and go with it. I like to wait until I see some of my brothers things, but the like to zoom on with it. After that, we go to my papas house and this year we are going to exchsange gifts with my cousins, then eat from my papa’s crawfish boil.
I insist on everyone opening one at a time. I’ve put waaaaay too much time buying and wrapping to have everyone rip gifts open all at once. I want to see the expressions on the kids’ faces when they open their gifts - that’s the part I love the most!
Growing up it was nothing before 7 a.m. and nothing before everyone was awake. You were not allowed to wake people. (I assume when we were little enough that there were infants, the latter rule might have been waved.
Stockings were opened before breakfast. That was done simultaneously by all. Then get dressed and have breakfast. After breakfast (and church if Christmas fell on a Sunday – boooo) we could open presents under the tree. Those were handed out one by one by Dad usually, though it could be someone else or swapped during the time. There was no set rule, but there was an attempt to even things out so no kid waited too long. Best presents were usually saved for last, though Dad would sometimes mis-guess on this.
I was a notoriously slow opener and if I got a present that really interested me, like some book or a particular game (ABPA Baseball for one) my siblings might be rushing me to open my next gift while I was still looking at the last one.)
ETA: And no crumpling the wrapping paper. It had to be folded.
We have only one child, so we were pretty lax about things. We let him open pretty much at the pace he wanted. I recall at age a couple of weeks less than 2, he spent an inordinate amount of time putting one present back into its box and taking it out again as we laughed.
We let the lil’ zombies open presents however they want. In the next room. Beyond the locked, barred, and reinforced door. Because, there’s no way I’d be in the same room; they only presents they’d be opening would be our heads.
We opened “family” gifts on Christmas Eve, one at a time. When my brother and I were small, the “Santa” gift – the bicycle, train set, or other big gift (but never a pony, dammit!) – would be waiting for us when we got up in the morning. When we were still in grade school, exact year forgotten, we tried the free-for-all method once. When the dust settled less than ten minutes later nobody was sure what the others had gotten. Even us kids thought the usual way of one at a time was more fun so we never repeated the experiment.
And as for Eve vs. Day opening, Dad told us it was a Scandinavian custom; we weren’t dumb enough to question that. I remember a conversation in Junior High:
“You open your presents on Christmas Eve? That’s weird; what do you do to make Christmas Day special?”
“Visit with the relatives and play with the stuff we opened last night. What do you do on Christmas Eve?”
<Looking at me a little enviously> “Drink eggnog and look at the presents under the tree.”
We’ve always spent Christmas Eve with my side, and had Christmas Day with my husband’s side.
At my parents, its either youngest to oldest or oldest to youngest - and done after dinner.
When the kids were little there was one mom and dad gift before going up to my parents (usually jammies). Stockings in the morning (openable before Mom and Dad got up - and generally with a small toy and candy in them) and then the gifts under the tree. Santa would show up over night. Still using oldest to youngest or youngest to oldest. We implemented the age thing with my in-laws - they had a free for all tradition that my mother in law never really liked (she likes the whole reaction and talk about it thing), so was more than willing to scrap her tradition (which I suspect was an ex-husband tradition that stuck because that’s how’d her kids had been doing it).
Now that the kids are older, we put Santa gifts out as they are wrapped. Santa has too many homes to visit, so once you get older, he drops off the presents early :). And we will open some Christmas Eve so that we don’t have the huge wrapping paper disaster Christmas morning and teenagers and adults can sleep in. (This year the Santa gifts are wrapped and out down in the basement, because I have a dog that thinks opening presents is a fun time, and he doesn’t respect traditions like wait until Christmas or go in order of age, or even only open your own presents - its actually less about the wrapping than it is about the chewing on cardboard boxes.)
Stockings are “opened” first. Everyone just takes them and empties them at the same time.
Presents are then opened. The kids have far more presents than we do so they start AND finish, and in between we take turns as convenience would suggest.
Every Christmas is slightly different in terms of what extended family shows up, so of course one has to account for that. This year, my sister and her family will be arriving mid afternoon, so of course all presents to them have to wait until then, and they’ll be bringing more presents, so there will be two gift openings for the kids. (All adults are on a one-present-per-person, $50 max limit, chosen by random draw, so there is not much to open there; the limit does not apply to gifts exchanged between spouses.)
This. BUT after we went to church. AND my father was the minister so it was a fucking long time before he was home and we could start with the round robin.
By middle school, this had transitioned to a Christmas Eve midnight service. Attendance went up, and we didn’t have to wait so long on Christmas day for my parents to get up and we could start on the round robin of gifts.
Fast forward: My twins were born on Christmas Eve so BIRTHDAY and no yuletide stuff on Xmas Eve.
Santa needs fuel for all of his hard work, so cookies and beer are put out. Sometimes, it is remembered that a shot of single malt is also welcomed by Santa.
I tried to impose order on the present opening, but that works about as well as anything else I try to impose order on in our house. Usually, there is something baking to nibble on, cappuccino or hot chocolate, and start with stockings. Then we pretty much just tear into the presents.
Oh, yeah; forgot about the stockings. Sometime before I was born Mom found a pattern for knitting Christmas stockings somewhere. They were mainly red with a Santa face* on one side and a Christmas tree on the other. At the top was a three-inch white band with the person’s name on one side and the year of their first Christmas on the other, both in green. Our wives got one and my two nephews as well (the spouse year was the first year after the marriage, natch). They would be hung late Christmas Eve after the gifts had been opened and filled if the recipient was less than thirteen or so (the wives got a token couple of fills) and as each person stumbled into the living room Christmas Morning, they’d empty their stocking; no ceremony.
*As a kid I was envious because my Santa’s beard was plain, white wool and my brother’s was angora wool.
