We used to open presents on Christmas Eve, we would start celebrating at 7pm and we’d open the gifts at 8pm, after we made a fire and we would play board games and eat snacks and stuff from 7pm - 8pm. Then we’d open the Christmas gifts and go to bed.
Christmas Day was a day for church. We went to chruch, which was usually only then and at Easter and then we’d come back from church and mum would cook dinner and that was that.
Christmas Eve was for presents, and Christmas Day was for religion and food.
This will be the first Christmas Eve opening I’ve ever done. Depending on the year and weather, I’ll sometimes skip the Christmas Eve service and attend the Christmas Day service at church. But presents were always left for Christmas Day. This year, I have to travel on Christmas Day, yuck! So, the presents will be opened on Christmas Eve to give more time to get ready for the trip.
I ticked ‘Christmas Day’ but in fact, it’s both, as we visit my partner’s mother on Christmas Eve, and exchange presents then. Our immediate family (my partner and kids) we do on Christmas morning. Usually we go to my parents’ place for Christmas lunch, but this year we aren’t going until Boxing Day, so we will have three days worth of presents.
We used to open ours on Christmas morning, but bro_mcl has started spending Christmas day with his inlaws, so we have Christmas dinner and open presents on Christmas Eve instead.
I’ve always done some of both, because of exchanging gifts with extended family and wanting to spend more time with out of town relatives. We did Christmas Eve with Dad’s family, did the whole Christmas morning thing at home, and then went to Mom’s family.
Now that I’m married, we do the night before Christmas Eve at home, Christmas Eve with his family, and Christmas Day with the various branches of my family.
We open our gifts on Christmas Eve, after the service, and then do a big family get-together on Christmas Day. When I was a child, we’d have presents in our stockings on Christmas Day, so we’d open those in the morning.
Everyone knows that Christmas Eve is the only proper time to open presents. Well, everyone but my husband and his family.
I’m a lot like **CCL **- now that I’m married and there’s nieces and nephews and all that, we open presents on a total mixture of days. Some Christmas Eve, some Christmas Day, some way off in an arbitrarily chosen day in January when we can get together. It’s weird, but works.
On the TV show the Honeymooners, Norton asks Ralph what Alice got him for Christmas and Ralph says Alice has this “thing” about opening presents on Christmas Day.
Mrs. Homie’s family has a big family get-together at her grandma’s house, where gifts are exchanged and merriment ensues. Then we go to her mom’s house, where MIL, Mrs. Homie, BIL, and I exchange gifts.
Christmas morning Mrs. Homie and I open up our gifts to each other.
We do a little of both - my parents come to our place around lunch on Christmas Eve, and we do presents with them. When they leave to stay with my brother and his family DH and I see how long we can hold out til we just HAVE to open our gifts to each other.
On Christmas Day, we go over to my brother’s, do that set of presents, and have brunch.
I’m like a little kid.