Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

I am curious to know...How do you do it for your children or how did your parents do it for you?

1. What does Santa bring to your house? (Does he bring the one "big" gift, does he bring everything, does he bring a few things?)

2. Does Santa wrap everything/anything/somethings?

3. Do you have any presents under your tree before Christmas? (Do you put out the gifts to each other, gifts to other families, nothing until Christmas morning)

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

Santa brings most of the stuff, there are a few from DH & I to the kids and the kids exchange too.

Santa does not wrap, everything is open and ready to be played with, which allows DH and I to doze a bit on the couch while they are playing.

Anything that's wrapped (the stuff from other family members, from us to the kids, from the kids to us and to each other) is all under the tree as they get wrapped.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

We have a Christmas Eve party. The kids get gifts from our friends. We give gifts to our friends kids. We give the kids 2 gifts.. 1 is always a pair of Christmas pajamas and the other is some toy or knick knack.

Christmas day EVERYTHING is from Santa at our house. We leave wrapping paper out for him on Christmas Eve with cookies so the presents are wrapped in familiar paper. Santa nibbles the cookies, drinks the cocoa or milk and eats all of the healthy snack. He leaves a letter that they must read before opening gifts (kind of a year in review).

We go to Rob's families home and they give their gifts to the kids and we eat a VERY early dinner (Noon). Then we go to my family and they give the brats more presents from them and we nosh on some of their edibles.

Then we go home, play with toys and eat a very late supper that is breakfast for dinner.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

Santa brings most of the gifts, but a few are from us, everything is wrapped except maybe 1 or 2 big "wow" gifts and NOTHING is allowed under the tree before Santa comes on Christmas eve when the kids are asleep. This is how my parents did it and I think DH's parents did too.


Eta: we do Christmas Eve at my parents house, ILs come as well. We exchange gifts with whichever family we will not see Christmas day.

Message edited 12/18/2011 5:20:46 PM.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

Santa brings some gifts, all wrapped in separate paper. Mom and dad give a bunch- each DS is wrapped in their own paper. We open all presents Xmas morning. No presents are put under the tree until the kids go to sleep Xmas eve.
We do celebrate Xmas eve with DH family and the kids get family presents to open that night.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

Nothing is from Santa. The presents have been under the tree for over a week, and as we get more and wrap more, we put them under the tree as well.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

We go to my brother's house Christmas Eve for church/dinner & after dinner Santa makes an appearance & brings e/ kid 2-3 gifts (wrapped); after Santa leaves we exchange gifts from my parents; bro/SIL.

At home we leave out a plate of cookies for Santa & wake to toys from Santa under the tree; all over living room wrapped (except if present is exceptionally large. They open stockings at that time as well.

Then after breakfast with IL's; they open nanny/grandpa's presents.

I liked how we did it as kids.

We'd always take naps Christmas Eve & when we woke up the parents would have on Christmas music & we'd take pictures coming down the stairs in our new PJ's & open our stockings & 1-2 small gifts from "santa".

We'd then meet up w/ the grandparents & go to dinner out or parents would make lobster/steak & Santa would make an appearance around 9pm or so (one of my dad's Jewish friends did it every year). All the gifts would be wrapped & in a big Santa bag--he'd call out our names as he pulled out the gifts.

We'd play w/ the gifts & then later on it seemed there was always a surprise gift either later that night (one year it was new bikes out on our deck) or else a big gift the next morning when we woke up.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

In my house growing up Santa brought the one "big" gift. It was always unwrapped and we could play with it while we waited for the parents. We were early risers, and had to wait for at least 5 or 530 to wake my parents and we had to have the coffee made (once we knew how to do it). We were also allowed to do our stockings before our parents got up. Leading up to Christmas, as it was wrapped it went under the tree. We would take gifts over to grandma's house on Christmas Eve for the extended family, and either before we left or after we got home we got to open one gift from our parents (our christmas pjs).

In DH's house growing up, NOTHING went under the tree until Christmas morning. Most was from Santa.

Our DS is 2, so we are trying to decide how Santa will work in our house. We are trying to come to a compromise, but it's not so easy!!! Just looking to see how other people are doing it.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

too funny I'm just seeing this now, I just posted something very similiar on the parenting board!

When I was growing up all the gifts were under the tree leading up to Christmas. On christmas day we would wake up to a special gift by the door from Santa. When DH was growing up no presents were under the tree until Christmas morning and they were all from Santa. Now that DS is getting a little older we have the dilemma of figuring out how to do it for him. Of course I liked it my way and DH liked it his... I don't like the idea of all the gifts being from santa, especially because I love giving gifts!

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

Everything is wrapped and the kids presents are all from Santa, each kid has a different paper so we don't need to do name tags.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

1. What does Santa bring to your house? (Does he bring the one "big" gift, does he bring everything, does he bring a few things?)

Santa brings almost everything. We give clothes from DH and I (b/c they don't like getting clothes:).

2. Does Santa wrap everything/anything/somethings?

He wraps everything except for when we put something together (got him a dirtbike last year). Isn't unwrapping it most of the fun ?!?!

3. Do you have any presents under your tree before Christmas? (Do you put out the gifts to each other, gifts to other families, nothing until Christmas morning.

Only presents under the tree beofre are presents for other families.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

Santa brings the "big" gift for each DS. Maybe 1 extra thing. He usually stuff their stockings too. The rest are from us. I tell DS that Santa can't possibly bring all the stuff on every kids list because then there wouldn't be room for it all. So he picks the best of the best and brings that.
All the gifts get wrapped. Santa has special paper for his gift. Usually I get something w. Santa on it.
Gifts for the boys go under the tree xmas eve.
The only gifts that would go under the tree before xmas would be gifts I wrapped for family & friends or gifts that were sent from OOS family to the boys.

My parents did the same for me growing up.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

santa brought everything and it was all wrapped.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

Our holidays are crazy!

Christmas eve at midnight (with ILs) Santa comes and each child gets 1 directly from santa. Then we exchange with DH's cousins who we will not see on Christmas.

Then Christmas AM, DS wakes to gifts under the tree. Everythning from santa has santa paper! 90% of gifts are from santa 1-2 are from Mommy & Daddy.

Then we exchange with my family. Then we go back to ILs and around 8pm we open all our family gifts which they know are from grandpa & Nonna or aunt & uncle so & so.

My mom used to do a different paper for each child! I havent decided if I am going to do that or not!.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

Everything for my DD goes out Xmas Eve night (after she's in bed) and everything is from Santa. We don't make a distinction between things from us and the big guy.........Santa gets all the props on this holiday!

Edit - Xmas Eve we spend with my extended family and she gets a ton of gifts (same as it was for me as a kid) and then Xmas morning is Santa, Xmas bfast is with my immediate family and she gets their gifts and then Xmas Day is with the IL's and she gets gifts from them too. It's a non-stop present fest!

Message edited 12/19/2011 7:58:23 PM.

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

1. Growing up, he brought just stockings at my dad's house (fully loaded with stuff on the side). At mom's he brought stockings and one or two gifts under the tree. We do the latter.

2. Santa wrapped everything but big stuff. This year, it'll be unwrapped, unboxed and ready. The kids have so much to open from family, it gets wearisome after a while.

3. We always did growing up - stuff we were giving to each other went under the tree as soon as it was wrapped. DH and I put it all out the night before because it gives a grander effect on the kids the next morning and it takes up a lot of valuable living room space!

Re: Gimme the Santa/Christmas gifts run down in your house...

It is DS's 1st Christmas but we are doing some things from Santa, some from us. The in laws are supplying the big gift this year!

One thing we will do is have the gifts from Santa wrapped in paper w/Santa on it. All others will not have Santa.

We mgiht put some out before... right now there are 4 cardboard boxes my parents shipped out w/presets inside, sitting under the tree. We are under strict orders not to open them!!