FisherQueen and I sound like we have similar traditions (particularly the ham - you gotta have ham).
Merry Christmas to all.
We go to my aunt’s house on Christmas eve - we used to go to my maternal grandmother’s house, but after she died, we ended up at another relative’s house. There we open the presents from that side of the family.
Christmas morning, once we’ve dragged ourselves out of bed (because the shindig on Christmas Eve usually ends up with too much wine and going on pretty late), and the in-town brothers have gotten there, we sit down and open presents at mom & dad’s house.
Then there’s breakfast, and by 2PM, we’re ready to start fighting! What fun!
Happy almost birthday, Kat!
We do Christmas Eve at the in-laws. A loud, animated bunch. This will be a bittersweet celebration, as it will be my FIL’s last. He always complains that MIL never gives him any money, so this year, everyone is giving him cash to put in his wallet. He can’t go anywhere with it, but it will make him happy.
Then it’s back to my place. Kalboy is spending the night. He’ll eyeball the presents and I’ll let him open one or two (he’s 27 years old, but you’d swear he was about 6 years old on Christmas). Then Christmas day, we go to my dad’s and celebrate with my side of the family (which is small, loud, and fun). Then we do a nice turkey dinner with all the trimmings and watch movies and drink until we can’t stay awake any longer. I love Christmas with both my families!
We don’t do presents. I understand that this isn’t for everyone, but there aren’t words for what a relief it is for me. When we were kids we did Christmas presents and opened them Christmas morning, but it always made my mother uncomfortable to see us so focused on things–not to mention that she’s a workaloholic who disliked shopping. So starting in my early teens we began having every other Christmas or so “no presents” and by the time I left for college we stopped presents all together.
This process is/was expidited by the fact that my mother is one of twelve, and that extended family never did Christmas gifts for each other. There are too many people (41 for dinner this year) and too much income disparity (everything from truck drivers to neurosurgons). Trying to do any sort of gift-giving just leads to logistical problems and emotional complications. Some people buy presents for their own children and/or grandchildren, and Grandmother gives checks to grandchildren and great grandchildren under 21, but there is no large scale gift exchanging. This year we are trying a whilte elephant exchange where everyone brings a used book, and that’s it for the gift giving part. It’s more like an office party than a family.
My grandmother does put up the stockings every year, but only because they are particularly impressive. Every one of her direct decendents and their spouses gets one, which at last count were at 63 or something. it’s an impressive sight, but not much goes in them–a little candy.
My family is extraordinarily generous- I graduated college without a dime in students loans, and I’ve never in my life wanted for anything. My grandparents often pick up the several thousand dollars worth of hotel charges for everyone (as you can imagene, there isn’t rook for forty to sleep in the house). My family just doesn’t do gifts. it’s too complicated and makes people too stressed. I can understand that it isn’t that way for everyone, but I am eternally grateful,
Since a good number of you are tacking on what your Christmas morning breakfast is I will share mine. Every year we get Pillsbury Orange Danishs ( you know the kind you have to pop out of the tube and cook ) I have no idea how that tradition came about but I love it. And it feels wrong, somehow, to have those danishes any other time of the year.
My family is quite large, and due to a custody agreement, my oldest two children go to their father’s house on Christmas morning as soon as Santa presents are opened. Time is short on Christmas morning, so we open a lot of family gifts on Christmas Eve.
So, I guess my answer is both!
FB
We open our presents Christmas morning. Since my brother’s birthday is Christmas Eve, we don’t really want to overshadow that.
My mom, dad and brother and I open ours Christmas Eve after supper. My husbands family opens them Christmas morning.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
I go to my sisters on Christmas eve. We do the family thing (both brothers, wifes, kids, and sisiter, husband, kids). As a college doper, I live at home with mom on breaks, so she and i save our gifts for each other until the day of.
When my brother and I were kids, we’d open the “family” presents on Christmas Eve and then find the “Santa” gift (bicycle, pony, whatever the Big Gift for that year was) the next morning, along with the stockings*. When we got too old for Santa, everything was opened on Christmas Eve. We were the only ones in our grade school to do so, and it dumbfounded our classmates.
“Whaddya to Christmas morning?”
“Play with the stuff we opened last night. Whaddya do Christmas Eve?”
“Drink egg nog end sing carols.”
“We do that too, before the presents.”
Made more sense to me.
*The year I was born, Mom found a knitting pattern for a huge red stocking with a Santa face on one side and a Christmas tree on the other. It also had patterns for the alphabet and numbers so for my first Christmas, she knit me a personalized stocking with my name and year on it. Three years later she knit one for my brother. Years after that she knit one for my brother’s wife, then their two boys, then finally for Desert Wife when we were married. She’s gone, now. I’m going to have to find out whether DesertSIL got the pattern from her, or my two nephews are SOL for continuing the tradition.
DD
“Whaddaya do on Christmas morning.” Not to.
Preview is my friend, preview is my friend.
DD
We have these cool stockings we got when I was 2 and my brother was one. We lived in Italy and got them personalized by the maker. My sister came along about 12 years later so she has the odd stocking out.
We used to do everything on Christmas Morning, but a couple years back we decided to do it on Christmas Eve. It actually seems to work a lot better, because then everyone can sleep in, and there is no anticipation so we(or at least I) sleep better.
Sometimes we do it while watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
Christmas day is usually reserved for Christmas Dinner.
THis would probably be different if we had to worry about In-laws, but considering only my immediate family lives withen 2000 miles of our home, it works fine.
We let my kid sister open ONE present on xmas eve and we open the rest xmas day… my sister normally goes to bed about midnight xmas eve and gets up at 6am xmas day so there’s only 6 hours differance but it’s still the principle of the matter. haha. 
stockings on st nicholas’ day. i’ll open anything as soon as it gets near my hands.
all christmas gifts go in a basket under the tree and don’t get used until christmas. unless the present is a calendar, that goes on the wall jan. 1.
there is no fondue. there is chocolate… lots and lots of chocolate.
As a kid growing up, we opened only one gift on Christmas eve, and the rest on Christmas morning.
As an adult with kids of my own, I want them to be able to remember who the gifts came from. On Christmas Eve, they open presents from their dad and I. On Christmas day they open gifts from Santa. The other gifts they get, usually come later in the day from aunts and uncles, and they are given directly to the misskids, so the misskids are expected to say thank you right away.
The extended family gets together Christmas Eve for a grand opening/eating festival of indulgence. I vaguely remember doing the only open one gift on Christmas Eve when I was little, that ended when the whole family started getting together, though.
My son opens his three presents from me Christmas morning, after ripping into the Santa-filled stocking. I started a tradition of three gifts when he was a toddler, to symbolize the three gifts given by the wise men, and to try and cut down on the present overload haze where they don’t appreciate anything because the mass is overwhelming. Works well for us.
Christmas afternoon is spent with our family of choice, presents are opened right away to give the kids something to play with while the adults either assemble things or help with meal prep.
Um, so while my answer’s ‘both’ I think the question was referring to immediate family members giftage? If that’s true, then it’s Christmas morning.
Our kids (and us) opened their presents from mom and dad and each other at about 11:00 am today. Then we went to my parents and they opened more presents. Tomorrow morning is Santa Claus. Then my husband’s side arrives with MORE PRESENTS. Then sometime between Christmas and New Years his Dad (his parents divorced when he was young) will swing through with presents.
If we wait until Christmas morning, our gifts get lost with Santa presents. If we wait until Christmas Eve night, its too late for little ones (we got home from my mother’s at 9pm). So we start Christmas eve.
My kids are the only grandchildren on both sides…and I married a spendthrift. So Christmas is a non-materialists nightmare around our house.
We have a ham dinner complete with red and green tablecloth and candles. Just finished it a few hours ago. Ham—the kind that melts in your mouth, mashed potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower, applesauce, and a fruit juice/7-Up mixture. Then tomorrow morning, ham and eggs. My mouth’s already watering.
After the meal my dad reads the Christmas story, then we open presents. We usually give the dogs a couple bones, can’t forget them. During the night, Mom stuffs stockings with candy and pens among other small items which we open in the morning. Around noon we head two hours north to relatives’ houses where we receive money and more food.
It’s a nice tradition.
As kids, my brothers and I were allowed to open our gifts to each other on Christmas Eve…the rest were opened Christmas morning.
Then I moved to Germany and the first Christmas I was afraid of being depressed…good news was that they all celebrated Christmas Eve and I went out to the bars and had a great time with other “foreigners” and Christmas morning I spent with Germans who, by that time, were “over” with Christmas.
Now, my SO who is German, and I open half our gifts Christmas Eve (bow to German custom) and half on Christmas morning (bow to American custom).
So actually, it winds up to be TWO Christmases (is that the plural?) and the best of both worlds!