When I was growing up…we opened Christmas presents the way you are supposed to open Christmas presents. ;)
We waited until Christmas morning. That was all part of the magic of Christmas.
Any other way of opening gifts was CRAZY to me. I felt that it was practically against the law to open presents on Christmas Eve. Because the way my family did it was the right way…and the only way.
Or so I thought. Because I was a kid.
Then, when I was a little bit older than a kid, I got married.
My husband’s family opened presents on Christmas Eve! Can you believe it?
And then Christmas morning…EVERYONE SLEPT IN!!! On Christmas morning!!!
What’s a girl to do…but learn to deal with the fact that everyone’s family has different traditions? And be flexible. And enjoy Christmas no matter “how it’s done” because it’s not really about gifts anyway and being with family is awesome any time!
Now, we have an “every other year” thing going on. The year we are with Matt’s side of the family…we open gifts on Christmas Eve. The next year, when we are with my side of the family we open gifts on Christmas morning.
Turns out…opening gifts on Christmas Eve isn’t against the law after all. I have done it and lived to tell about it. I’ve even enjoyed myself very much.
So…what are your traditions? Are you a Christmas Eve family….or a Christmas Morning family? Or does it depend on who you’re with?
Don’t tell Laura, but we opened presents on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Let’s let her think she had it better than me and did Christmas the right way.
BECAUSE we DID…do Christmas the right way. The first year we were married, we opened all our gifts on Christmas Eve and on Christmas morning NO ONE got up before 10am…except ME. And I sat in the kitchen snapping green beans for lunch. By myself. Then I called my mom BECAUSE THEY WERE OPENING PRESENTS the RIGHT WAY. On Christmas morning.
But I’m over it.
Totally over it…..not bitter…..just like to do things the RIGHT way.
LOL -you guys crack me up!
You guys are hilarious!!
Lol! I have 2 step-sons, so we have to work around their schedule. Some years we have them the week before CHRISTmas and some years the week after. Every other year we open our presents 3-4 days before CHRISTmas and the other years we do it CHRISTmas morning. It was definately an adjustment since we ALWAYS opened our presents at like 5 am on CHRISTmas morning when I was a kid. But if we did it any other way they would miss out or not have time to play with their new gifts before going home. We do always save a few presents for our kids together to open on CHRISTmas morning when they aren’t here. But don’t tell them! They probably wouldn’t mind since they are opening presents with their mom anyways. But just in case. ;)
We are a bit of both. We have pizza every New Year’s Eve because that’s Santa’s favorite. Cookies are freshly baked for him and set out with a glass of Soda or Juice, because Santa is a bit lactose intolerate with age. We watch Christmas movies Christmas Eve, lately the favorite has been Polar Express. After the movie we open one present, new jammies. It is so nice to have the girls all “dressed” in matching or color coordinated jammies come Christmas morning. We usually get up about 5am and open gifts then we all watch the story of Jesus on TV later in the day.
Okay, got a bit ahead of myself, I meant Christmas Eve, not New Year’s Eve!
Sorry this is lengthy, but I am so opinionated!!
Okay, so on the issue with the presents, I have established 3 rules (the same as it was for me growing up) in our household with our children:
1. Choose 1 present from a sibling to open Christmas Eve -the rest are opened Christmas morning -as EARLY as possible!
2. My children MUST be in THEIR OWN beds on Christmas Eve – we choose not to travel until the next day or following weekend. (grandparents are down the street!)
3. Our children are reminded to stay in their rooms until Mommy and Daddy call them down (this is, of course, for photo ops and video, and also for that much needed COFFEE!) ;p
We love, love, love Christmas at our house and our church has recently made a movement to take as much commercialism out of Christmas as possible. They are strongly encouraging families to set up new “Christ Centered Traditions” for the holiday and we have adopted 4 ideas to help keep our focus where it should be:
1. We use a scripture based advent calendar every year
2. We will read the First Christmas nativity story on Christmas Eve as a family.
3. We bake Jesus a birthday cake
4. And last (my personal favorite) -if 3 presents was good enough for the baby Jesus, 3 presents is more than plenty for our children! They actually loved the idea!
Hope someone else benefits from these ideas! Merry Christmas everyone!
I love your church’s ideas to make things more centered on the reason for Christmas, especially the 3-gift rule.
Thanks! I was so pleased when my kids were excited about the idea!
When I was a kid we lived in the same city as my entire extended family. Everyone got together on Christmas Eve for dinner, exchanged gifts and opened them all then. Christmas mornings were reserved for each individual nuclear family to spend together opening “Santa” gifts and special gifts just to and from each other. I loved having it both ways.
Christmas morning! Are you *sure* there isn’t a law? ;-)
And sleeping in or not depends on whether or not there are children between the ages of 2 and 12 in the house.
We also opened one gift on Christmas Eve. I also remember a couple of years when we woke up and found a gift beside our beds. We also weren’t allowed to come out until the whole family was ready. Our daughter is still small, so we can do whatever we want. :)
Our biggest family difference is that my family took turns opening gifts one person at a time, rotating whose turn it was. With my husband’s family it was a free-for-all. You didn’t know who was opening what, and you never really got to see what anyone got. I’m all about taking your time and enjoying each other and the gifts.
We also read the story of Christ’s birth before we open any gifts on Christmas morning. We’ve been using a Scripture-based advent calendar too.
When I was growing up, our entire extended family lived in the same town. Christmas Eve meant a family dinner and presents with my mom’s side of the family, at my grandparent’s house. Our nuclear family opened presents on Christmas morning. My brother, sister and I were allowed to “sneak” downstairs and bring our stockings to our bedrooms to open whenever we woke up (usually at some point in the early, early morning hours). At a more reasonable hour, we went down to open presents. On Chrismas night, we had a family dinner and presents with my dad’s side of the family. Lots of family, food and presents in that 2 day span!
Since our son was born (2 years ago), we have traveled home to be with my family for Christmas (about 2 1/2 hours away). We usually go the day before Christmas Eve, and stay for several days. However, we have discussed staying home next year, and the 3 of us spending Christmas in our own home together. I’m a little anxious to discuss this with my mom though. :)
When my sister and I were younger, we got to open one present on Christmas Eve right before going to evening mass. Then we opened everything else Christmas morning.
The first Christmas after I was married, we didn’t have money to get each other any presents. This year my husband doesn’t want me to get anything for him (really)! And he’ll be gone Christmas Eve, so I’ll have to wait until Christmas morning after he gets home.
Ever since my hubby and I got married, we decided that Christmas morning would be just for us, our family.
Before we moved away from family, we would celebrate Christmas with different people in our family on different days or at different times. It could get kind of crazy, but that’s how it is when everyone lives near each other…
Generally, our tradition is to open one present on Christmas Eve (usually our Christmas pjs) and then Christmas morning, we open stockings. After breakfast, we open presents. For the rest of the day, we relax and play with our new gifts. Christmas meals are simple, so we can spend the day together as a family.
We always opened presents on Christmas Eve growing up. We opened presents from Santa on Christmas morning. It made for a very boring Christmas once one got too old for Santa. Now we’ve been trying to have our girls open their presents on Christmas morning. On thing that made things easy when my hubby and I were married is that he was raised as a JW. He didn’t have any traditions!
I was an only child, and the only niece for a long time. We went to
my grandparents on thanksgiving and opened all our presents from
my mom’s side of the family. Then we opened 1 present on Christmas
eve and the rest on Christmas. We have 6 boys now and we stay
home and visit grandparents after Christmas to help keep the focus
on Christ and not presents.
We are a Christmas morning family. But, dh’s family is in town and does an extended family celebration on Christmas Eve, so we open presents with them, too. And then there’s the extended family gathering on my side and also my immediate family gathering and dh’s immediate family gathering…kinda seems like we just have Christmas for about two weeks. =)
I think we opened presents on three different days last year…
I grew up knowing that Christmas was when we all got to be together. My daddy was a highway patrolman and normally worked or was on call during holidays. Santa has come to my house days before Christmas and that was normal to us. When daddy was off, we traveled to be with my grandparents.
I am about to be lucky enough to add a son in law to my family. His family has very strict rules about Christmas and how it is to be handled. In fact, his mom has him tired up from early Christmas eve morning until late Christmas night. She actually got mad when he called my son last Christmas morning.
Needless to say, he appreciates that we are so flexible.
To me, the actual day is just a day. When everyone is together then THAT is the actual Christmas.
My husband is an RN so we’ve had to be pretty flexible on a lot of holiday traditions (hospitals can’t exactly close for Christmas; NO ONE would appreciate that :). My favorite way of celebrating is doing Christmas with my in-laws on Christmas Eve (around brunch time) and then our Christmas Eve in the evening. My husband and I open our gifts to eachother after the kiddos go to bed. Then in the morning we do OUR Christmas with our kiddos. THEN, we do Christmas with my parents later in the day with a big meal. It’s a lot of food and a lot of presents but we get to see everyone :) Here’s to hoping it works this year!
Well, on Eve the kids exchange their gifts to each other. And, if we haven’t opened them already, my hubby and I open ours also. Ususally the kids convince us to opne ours weeks before. But since I already got an ipod touch and he got a shot gun, we’re done..no presents to open for us.
But on the flip side, if my hubby works on Christmas day, Santa come a day early. So we have Christmas morning on CHristmas eve morning. Santa is out of his mind if he thinks I’m putting together 7 lego sets all by myself in the morning. :)
We always opened our maternal Grandparent’s presents on Christmas Eve. It was fun – and always pajamas that we wore that night. My mom has continued that tradition.
Growing up, we opened ONE present on Christmas Eve (usually PJs or something), then opened the rest Christmas morning. Now, we open everything with our little family at home Christmas morning, then head to the in-laws to exchange presents. I like that it lasts the whole day that way.
Growing up we always opened presents early Christmas morning. Like 5am early, lol. DH grew up opening on Christmas Eve. Lucky for me he wasn’t really set in his ways about that. Now I am trying to start a tradition of Christmas PJ’s to open Christmas Eve and then all the other presents Christmas morning…maybe just not so early. :)
Growing up we opened presents on Christmas Eve and I hated it! :-) There was nothing fun about Christmas Day, then. My husband grew up Jewish so he has no traditions to bring to the mix, which is AWESOME!
We are a step-family and my step-daughter is with us on Dec 25th every other year and comes Dec 26th on the off years. This year we’re starting a new tradition: on Christmas Eve we’ll go somewhere for the evening; Christmas day will be for baking a cake for Jesus’ b-day; and Dec 26th will be the day to open presents. My kids are little so if I start now, hopefully they won’t know any different!
My parents are like you… they had differing traditions and during my childhood we traded off when we opened presents. Now, both sides of our family are usually all together, and we open gifts Christmas Eve. We like doing it in the evening, when the lights really sparkle and after having a nice meal. We take turns, opening one gift at a time. It lasts quite a while and we have time to be thankful for each present. Christmas morning we open our stockings and prepare for another big meal!
I came up against the same dilemma when I got married, and it took some adjustment … but it turned out to not be as evil as I thought it was (opening gifts on Christmas Eve). Our families both live in the same town, which helps with our solution: we always spend the whole day of Christmas Eve with my husband’s family and the whole day of Christmas Day with my family. Now that our boys are older, and they realize they get TWO Christmases, they really enjoy the situation =)
Oh, this post gave me a good laugh today- thanks. We had the same issues when my husband and I got married. I really could not fathom the idea of opening presents Christmas Eve – all of them! It just didn’t seem right. Now we open presents on Christmas Eve with my husband’s side of the family and the kids open one when we get home (they always know that it’s a nice, new pair of pj’s for Christmas morning) – the rest are for opening Christmas morn – just they way Mama likes it ;)
I grew up opening presents Christmas Eve and THEN getting to play Santa (anonymously) on Christmas morning, so that everyone still had stockings to “open” on Christmas morning. Now, with family so scattered and lives so crazy, sometimes we open presents with some family members a week early or a week late. Regardless, I think giving gifts and watching the receiver enjoy their gift is the best part, regardless of the day.
We always opened presents on Christmas morning, but we always got to open ONE present on Christmas eve. It was usually something like, flannel Christmas sheets, or slippers or something and we all had pretty much the same thing, just different colors or whatever. That is my family’s tradition and I love it.
We usually go to a midnight Mass for Christmas Eve and let the children open one present when we get home. It is new pajamas. They wear them to bed that night. We also break the Advent fast with a small something. Rich and I finish wrapping presents (or finish making them) that night and I decorate the tree. We leave it lit, so the children wake up to the tree decorated first thing in the morning.
In the morning, we go to mass for Christmas day and come home to open the rest of the presents and eat lots of good foods after the Advent fast. We go around the room so each person opens a gift while the others watch. We listen to Christmas carols and sing them for the first time on Christmas Eve and we continue to sing and listen throughout the 12 days of Christmas. We take down our tree after Epiphany.
We do our stockings on St. Nicholas, which is tomorrow, so we are putting out our stockings tonight. The children write a letter or draw a picture for St. Nicholas to take to Jesus and we leave a carrot out for his horse.
We use the daily office for our morning and evening prayers each day, so our readings and prayers go along with the Church year and go with the seasons.
My side of the family is a Christmas Eve and morning family (I’ll explain in a bit), but my husband’s is a strictly Christmas morning family.
My parents would always host a Christmas Eve bash for the entire family so that my 3 siblings, who are 20, 16 and 14 years older than I am, could spend Christmas morning with their kids, families, etc. We would open the wrapped presents (to wrap or not to wrap, that’s a whole ‘nother post, Laura!) to each other on Christmas Eve. The unwrapped presents from “Santa” (we did do Santa when I was a girl, now I don’t anymore) were for Christmas morning.
Well, my husband’s family does it differently. All presents are wrapped no matter who they are from, even Santa presents. My MIL would wrap all Santa presents in the same paper (usually red and white of some sort) and the presents to each other in different paper. All presents were opened Christmas day, period.
Now, we don’t do Santa and all presents are wrapped and opened on Christmas day. There really is no need to open anything on Christmas Eve at this point. Things might change as my children have families of their own, though.
My family’s tradition, and the one we’ve continued with our children, is to open one gift on Christmas Eve, after a candlelit church service. Then kids can get up real early Christmas morning and look into their stockings while parents sleep. At around 8 or 9 mum and dad are up and kids can open their other gifts.
As a kid, my two siblings and i often woke up at 4 am. Mom and Dad (I think, don’t quote me on it.) let us open everything in our stockings. That way they slept until about 8 and we when all busy for a few hours.
Now, I plan to open gifts will my room mates on the 23, and the rest with my parents on the 25. this changes every year depending on my ablitly to travel. I am greatfull that my room mates and I are very close as well.
Oh, I LOVE Christmas traditions! As a “new” family (been married nearly 10 years but now with a toddler are just starting to try our own traditions), we don’t have any traditions of our own yet. Hubby’s family does not believe in God at all, so for me, Christmas is a real downer with them. We exchange gifts, but it usually just involves a trip to Sam’s Club where his parents have us grab some things from our wish list.
My family, on the other hand, has some very deeply rooted traditions – most involving the torture of the children. As an adult, I love these traditions, but I hated them as a child!
Christmas Rules:
1. Children upstairs after Christmas Eve service – not allowed back down without parents.
2. Parents must not be disturbed until 7am.
3. All family members must have teeth brushed and be wearing something other than pj’s – robe and slippers or regular day clothes.
4. Dad is the only one allowed downstairs first. He puts the sheet over the doorway to the living room with the tree.
5. Dad returns to upstairs and we go as a family into the kitchen.
6. All family members must eat a full breakfast and clean up. Once everything is cleaned up, we could open our stockings. One. At. A. Time.
7. Once all the stockings were cleaned up and the kitchen was spotless, Dad would remove the sheet from the living room doorway.
8. Family goes in living room and sits down. One child is chosen to start distributing gifts – child chooses one gift for someone other than themselves, delivers it, then sits back down. Gift is opened by intended recipient. Recipient then chooses a gift for another.
9. Repeat process one. at. a. time. until all gifts have been opened.
10. Once all wrapping paper has been cleaned up, the “Christmas weapons” (from the stockings) are brought out (usually rubber bands or nerf-type guns) and a full-family battle ensues for a few hours. What better way to pass the time until family turkey dinner than a full-blown battle!
Weapon of choice for this year’s battle – marshmallow guns!
We were allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve (just before heading to Midnight Mass). My parents would choose the gift and they ALWAYS chose pajamas to open! After Midnight Mass we would either open right away or wait until morning.
January 6th (Feast of the Three Kings) we would open our stockings.
You are absolutely right!!!! Christmas morning is not Christmas without presents to open!
But we get together with extended family on Christmas Eve and open a present from aunts and uncles. And Santa shows up every year (he’s on old friend of my husbands) and brings new pajamas for the kids to wear to bed. Best $40 we ever spent on that costume…too bad somehow Dad always misses the visit from his old friend!
We got to open one gift from Mom and Dad on Christmas Eve after dinner. Then we opened Santa the next morning along with the rest of the gifts from Mom and Dad. Funny.
My younger brother and I were always up at the crack of dawn and wandered into the living room to check out our gifts. We “accidentally” opened one to all three of us one year because we just had to know what it was. Once that happened our parents wrapped the doorway at the end of the hall so that we couldn’t get through in the morning.
We actually loved that. We would take a running start down the hallway and bust through the paper. We never got in trouble for opening our presents too early again either.
When I was growing up we had some crazy traditions that I don’t know anyone else had!
1) We spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the subsequent day with family out-of-state (presents were opened every day from whomever we were visiting – including the largest family gathering Christmas Eve with LOTS of presents! Maybe it’s a German thing?).
2) We always had stomach aches by the time we got home. Too much food & we had to be polite and eat at EVERYONE’s house!
3) Santa would visit us “on his way back to the North Pole” which sometimes was as late as the 30th! We never thought it was strange because our parents were good fakers and we were all gullible (or you know, had the Christmas Spirit in our hearts! lol!).
Now we have a tradition Swedish Smorgasbord on Christmas Eve before church (which is until 12:30am at least). Christmas morning, us “kids” still open stockings and we exchange presents throughout the day while sneaking cookies to spoil our appetites for dinner. Fortunately, there are a lot less tummy aches these days.
I’m late for the discussion, but here’s my 2 cents’ worth. My dad was a minister, so the Christmas eve service was ALWAYS what we did. Afterwards, we’d come home and have hot cider or hot chocolate and play games as late as we could stay up. Christmas morning we could look in our stockings, but after that (and this proves how mean my mom was) we’d have to get dressed, make our beds, eat breakfast and then (CHILD ABUSE!!!!) we’d have to wash the dishes before we could open presents. Mom said she always knew that on Dec. 25th the dishes would always be washed quickly. To this day, that remains the only way to have Christmas properly. Merry Christmas to your family, Laura!