Christmas traditions... opening presents etc

[marchmom19]

How do you make it special for your child and make opening gifts a special event and not a speed who can open all the gifts under the tree as fast as they can etc.

Last year I wrapped all the gifts in pillow cases and cloth bags... I put all the gifts on the sled and pulled into the room. I had my child grab a gift for each of us and we then played with that game for that day. Next day opened another etc... tried to spread it out through the 12 days of christmas. (if they got lots of things from families and stuff). I think it helps for the younger ones as otherwise its too overwhelming for them.

This year at each Advent sunday I gave her a little gift (a book) and she just loves it. Last Sunday she said 'wow...Nice!' Oh so cute!! Then dh reads it to her at bedtime.

Thanks for sharing your traditions.

Stephanie who is busy working on homemade gifts for families.. (just sent out all the homemade bookmarks and painted pots that dd made, now got to finish my project 'brag' mini scrapbook for the grandparents).

[Starfire]

Our family has gotten so big, so what we do is our families open up out stuff (average four people per family from my mom), then at 11am-noon we go to my moms, where things are organized! (14 people) My sister hands out one present per person and the youngest starts. We all wait till she is done them move around the room. It does not take us a while, we can not afford much, so it ends up being about three presents per person. Grandchildren normally get about five presents each. And after that we go to my aunts house where ALL the family gets together. About 40 people and we do not do presents. We quit doing that five years ago when we started seeing the kids expecting gifts instead of the time together as a family. So now we do games, eat, and everyone comes with a story to tell! I love it, tons of fun.

[AmyB]

In my family we open gifts from each other on Christmas Eve. We have a civilized Christmas Eve dinner on the nice china then we take turns opening presents and admiring what everybody got.

We pare down the gift list by having adult siblings and spouses draw names and agreeing that only grandma and parents buy gifts for children.

On Chrstmas morning everybody gets a stocking full of candy and small gifts and the kids get one special gift from Santa.

--AmyB

[rwikene]

when I was growing up we always got to open one gift on Christmas eve, it was usually either a coloring book and crayons or jammies...that way we could use either of the gifts right away.

Dh's family always had a birthday party for Jesus on Christmas eve, Grandma would make the cake and they would sit down for dinner, then sing happy birthday and eat yummy chocolate cake.

Since we are spending Christmas with DH's family we will do the birthday party (which I think is cool anyway) and then sneak DD a gift upstairs to open before bed (dh's family has a strict "no gifts befor christmas" rule ) Then the next morning, we can't open a single gift until everyone is dressed and has eaten breakfast (pancakes) and the table is cleared.

My family is the wake up at 5am and run around the house yelling "it's christmas, it's christmas" and then running to the tree and ripping open all the gifts kind of people