<p>Christmas Eve: Santa comes bringing gifts. (My husband always seems to miss Santa’s visit. 
… and yes, our children are now all young adults.)</p>
<p>We then gather round the tree and one present at a time is passed to be opened and admired.</p>
<p>Afterwards we head to Midnight Mass.</p>
<p>Christmas Day: well, we switch gears into Happy Birthday mode for one of those aforementioned young adults.</p>
<p>Busy time of year.</p>
<p>We do one at a time on Christmas day for presents from Granparents. For presents from Mom and Dad, our daughters get one present a day for each of the 12 days of Christmas. They love having it spreadout over 12 days, and all their friends are jeolous of them.</p>
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<p>Oh my goodness, if we’d used this system, we’d still be opening presents. 
We had 19 here on Christmas morning! My H and I handed out the gifts, which were all under our tree(s), other than my granddaughter’s which were in a large pile all to itself. One of my Ds and her fiance took over for us at one point so that we could open some of ours, so my H could make everyone lattes and so I could get the brunch casseroles into the oven. I try to do a good job of watching everyone so that I can see not only what they’re getting but also their reaction to the gifts I choose. Even with this way of doing it, it took over an hour.</p>
<p>When the entire family opens presents together, everyone opens ONE present at the same time. We all look around at what everyone opened, and then repeat. </p>
<p>When it’s just the four of us, we do it “one gift at a time.”</p>
<p>When we were growing up, we always opened our gifts after Mass on Christmas Day…oh it was sooooo hard to wait. We’d sometimes go to Midnight Mass, just so we could open gifts after we woke up. </p>
<p>We never were the types to open on Christmas Eve. My parents were just too opposed to that idea.</p>
<p>Mom would always label our “big gift” as being “from Santa.” We opened that one last.</p>
<p>Our tradition - Christmas Eve with my side of the family. Church, dinner, gift exchange, dessert. Thirteen of us. Youngest who can read will pass the gifts out and gifts are opened one at a time, youngest to oldest. Although usually oldest cheats and opens before she should. Dessert is always red velvet cake - We sing happy birthday to Jesus. The little ones blow out the candles.
Christmas morning - hubby, daughter and I. She opens stocking gifts first and then other gifts. Then I open mine, and then hubby.
Christmas afternoon/evening - Gifts with in-law side of family - 17 of us - no rhyme or reason. It’s a free-for-all and I hardly know who got what. Then dinner and dessert. Someone always reads the Christmas story out of Luke before dinner and then prayer.
But it’s family, tradition, and wonderful.</p>
<p>We open semi-one-at-a-time on Christmas morning. 5 of us, my parents, and 2 gf. I like watching them open. I HATE having people watch me open presents. Always have. S1 is the same.</p>
<p>We have 11 - 12 for Christmas and open one at a time, starting with the youngest. We take a break for breakfast. It does take awhile but we all enjoy it. I’m always on pins and needles with gifts from my husband - he shops the day before Christmas at 5 below and Staples…</p>
<p>extended family: all at once</p>
<p>parents + myself: one at a time</p>
<p>When the kids were younger, they were allowed to get up early and open their stockings together. Gave us a little more sleep time and it was nice that they enjoyed that special time together. Last year I decided not to do stockings for the first time for the kids. Then my daughter surprised me by doing a lovely stocking for me (first time i had had one since I was a teenager.)</p>
<p>When the kids were younger, I started choosing a particular wrapping paper for each of them. That way I didn’t label them and they had no clue which pile was theirs when they were snooping. We also did the taking turns one gift at a time. Everyone enjoys seeing what the other ones get. (started that one year after the kids just ripped everything open in seconds and it was all a bit of an anticlimax both from a giver and receiver POV. We are a very small family though, so it is not too time consuming.</p>
<p>We open gifts from family on Christmas Eve at my Mom’s house, and we usually only take on or two gifts for each of our own kids. And then Santa comes to our house, and the kids get those presents on Christmas morning. Santa NEVER wraps presents. Instead, they are beautifully arranged in separate piles under the tree with a small card telling which pile belongs to which kid. And there are stockings from Santa and also stockings from my mom for all the kids and grandkids.</p>
<p>cromette - Santa doesn’t wrap presents, he just piles them?? </p>
<p>swimscatsmom, I LOVE the idea of wrapping presents in different paper instead of labeling!</p>
<p>My husbands family always did Santa presents in tissue paper so that would stand out. We did that for awhile until one Christmas eve we ran out of tissue paper. Fortunately, the contents was good enough that no one fussed much. Now we just try to do them in all the same paper and that’s about it.</p>
<p>When I was a child, Santa did not wrap presents either (my Dad didn’t want them wrapped). Santa did wrap for my kids though. </p>
<p>I too like the idea of using the same wrapping paper on each gift for each individual receiver. Maybe I’ll do that next year and see if anyone notices.</p>
<p>Santa wrapped in paper with Santa Claus pictures. Our presents came in different paper. And when they were little, each had different paper from us. I did still sign. So did the elves–some of them had pretty awful handwriting, too.</p>
<p>We wait for everyone to be up, I start breakfast (usually throw a stratta in the oven I made the night before), serve some pastries and coffee around the tree before we settle down to gifts. Stockings are opened first, and small presents in the socks are wrapped, so it takes awhile. Then gifts are opened one at a time, no particular order. We really like seeing what others have given, and like to make comments about them, why they were chosen, etc. When the breakfast is ready, we’ll stop and eat, but we have usually finished with the gifts by that time- especially now that the kids are older and they receive fewer presents. </p>
<p>When kids were little, I wrapped Santa gifts in special paper- usually all the same, and scrawled the kids names on each. We would put a few gifts “From Mom and Dad” under the tree in the days leading up to Christmas, which the kids would shake and try to guess, but the gifts “From Santa,” which were the majority, would go out after they were asleep on Christmas Eve, along with the stockings. They were always thrilled to go into the family room on Christmas morning and see the extra gifts and socks from Santa, and see that some of the cookies they left were eaten.</p>
<p>I’ll never forget the Christmas morning that my 4 year old daughter didn’t want to get up on Christmas because she was sure Santa hadn’t left her anything. (She had been in a bit of trouble the week before.) I think when she saw that Santa had NOT forgotten her, she was convinced that Santa must exist, as Mom and Dad would never have left her so many presents. I felt really bad that she had taken her scolding so hard, but we often laugh about it now.</p>
<p>kathiep, you say that as if it’s a bad thing! 
LOL.</p>
<p>As a kid, I remember a wonderland under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning. A train set, already set up, a doll sitting on her own bed, a Little People’s Village with cars all arranged, and a stufed monkey peering over the tops of the shiny new, awesome smelling books. I loved it.</p>
<p>I just did the same for my kids - and found that it reduced the stress of Christmas and added to my joy - and the kids seemed to love it too. I thought to myself, “No WONDER my parents did that! This is so much easier, and it’s fun to be creative and try to appeal to their wonderment!” Now that they’re older, it’s not really as much of a wonderland - but we’ve just carried on the tradition. I’ll bet they choose to do the same thing in their families.</p>
<p>When our kids were younger, there was a LOT more effort putting into setting up multiple train sets, having a huge tree and decorations throughout the house. Now, we decorate more simply but still enjoy it. Next year, I’ll take out the wooden train set again–we haven’t used it in awhile and it was always loved by all of us. We did give away the electric train because it was just too big for us to hang on to. It was lovely but bulky. The wooden trains are much smaller and bring back happy memories for all of us of simpler times when we were together a lot more.</p>
<p>My mom’s six siblings and their kids and even grandkids come over for Christmas Eve dinner at my house so you can imagine how long that would take if we waited for each person to open their gifts. This Christmas was a record, since we got most of the gifts opened in half an hour. I remember one Christmas, the first one in our home, we waited for everyone to open their presents. It was more fun and nicer but now, Christmas has grown and grown. It also took about two and a half hours. My dad and my cousin gave out the gifts and everybody around us was laughing and joking and it was a lovely time. Usually, it’s one person giving out the presents and making jokes along the way but I guess my dad wanted to speed things up. We always open presents up at midnight. As soon as 12 o’clock hits, the little kids start getting anxious. I remember counting down the minutes when I was younger.
First, we take pictures and hug everyone in our family (we have a HUGE family) and wish everyone else a Merry Christmas. </p>
<p>We had so many gifts this year, the tree was almost covered! This was also the first time three family friends (and their families) were invited to Christmas so it took longer since we had more people. It was fun to see all the children gathered around the tree, so excited to open gifts. As you get older, you appreciate that more. I loved seeing my little sister open up her presents.
Christmas is for more the kids anyway. We always have a lot of kids in my family receiving tons of presents so it would take long no matter what. It’s chaotic but I wouldn’t have it any other way.</p>