When do single people open their mailed Christmas presents?

If you’re a single person, and will not be around the people who send you Christmas presents by mail, when do you open them?

This should be a general answer. I know this is a very general poll. If it helps, please mentally insert a “usually” in front of the poll options.

I’ll post my vote after I’ve created the poll.

I usually open the present my folks send to me on Christmas Eve. That’s due to a childhood tradition of getting to open one present each before we went to Midnight Mass.

I rarely get presents, in the mail or otherwise. However, if a present arrives at my door it is being opened with all of the glee of a 3 year old!

On arrival. I have no willpower. I also used to snoop around the house until I found the hidden presents when I was a kid.

Well the only present I get is from my Mom, and I open it immediately. Mostly because I am under orders to from her for immediate inspection. Because the Mailman may have stolen the real present and put in rocks and newspaper or something I guess. The last time I tried waiting I got emails constantly about things that may have happened to it. For her piece of mind It’s easier to give a full report immediately.

I keep my presents for the day they are intended. I got a few for my 50th birthday and did not open them until the day.

I got mine today and it had a Postal Service tracking number on it.

Stuffed into the package along with my present was my last AT&T bill from St. Louis. I did open that.

It depends. If the gift is wrapped, I wait until Christmas Day, maybe Christmas Eve. This year, my presents from my SO were not wrapped, and some arrived a month early…I have no willpower, unless he asks me to wait. He sent a necklace I had hinted/asked for, and I was GOING to wait…but I really, really wanted to wear it every day until Christmas. And the other major present he sent…well, he made me go pick it up RIGHT THEN and then open it and get it set up and running, so I really didn’t have a choice. The presents the kids are sending won’t get here until very close to the big day, so I will wait on those.

If I think it’s food, I’ll open it when I receive it. If it’s probably something non-perishable, I’ll let it sit decoratively on the coffee table, under the little Xmas tree if I bothered to put it up this year, to await Xmas morning.

I am not now single, but when I was (and stuff still arrived in the mail) the answer was “Whenever.” No tree then, so stuff sat in my room until I opened it. More than once, I opened it with a caller on the other end of the line wondering if it had arrived OK. But there were times I opened them just because I needed a surprise at the end of a long day.
p.s. I did Xmas Day and Thanksgiving feasts every year for my household then.

I haven’t received a package gift in a number of years for anything, but when I did I would save it until the day of, unless told otherwise.

I voted “Other,” because I open mine on my Birthday, which is December 25th.

My best friend usually sends me two separate packages with explicit instructions: one is marked “For Christmas Morning” and the other “Open NOW!”

Mostly on arrival, it might be something perishable, and I also want to see what it is. BUT, if I am all by myself, as in the past (currently my closest friend is my house-mate), then I would often save one thing to open Christmas.

Christmas day. No exceptions. As a kid, my mom would just toss all the presents in the guest bedroom, say “don’t open that door, the presents are in there”, and I would never peep. Opening presents early just ain’t right.

The present could be perishable, opening upon arrival is the only responsible choice.

I’m not sure what this poll has to do with single people, unless you mean “people without children”.

When I was single, I’d open them “whenever”, usually right after they arrived. Nothing has changed since I got married.

Likewise, except substitute “morning” with “Eve”, as per family tradition. Morning was when we opened the presents from Santa.

Well, that’s part of what I meant. I could have said, “When do people like me who are single and have no family locally and don’t live with anyone who would offer peer pressure to wait until Christmas to open presents open their mailed Christmas presents?” but I only had so many characters available in the title.

I still could have worded it better, I suppose.

Other, it depends. Single, no kids, family far-flung around the globe and I’m not seeing any of them Christmas day.

I’ve already been to two Christmas parties, and everyone opened their gifts at the party, so I did too. I think it’s nice to open gifts when the giver is present. I have another couple of get-togethers between now and The Day, and I imagine we’ll do the same thing.

OTOH, since it was customary to open family gifts on Christmas morning when we were kids, we all adhere to that habit as adults/parents. I have a couple of mailed packages that I won’t open until Christmas morning.