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When do the gifts go under the tree?


Mimm
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After they go to bed on Christmas Eve.  But this is hard now with adult sons at home who go to bed way later than I want to!  I pretty much have to make them go to their rooms early on Christmas Eve!  And the Easter Bunny was caught in the act a couple of years ago by an adult son.  

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Do you live in the US? The post office won't let me do that here. I always planned on sending them two boxes, one with my return address on it that contained socks, underwear, and maybe a single meaningful book (see my giftmas thread, lol) and another, bigger one containing all the good stuff with a return address of "Santa Claus, the North Pole".

 

I thought 9/11 ruined all that. Please clue me in!

 

They come from Santa c/o Mom's Name, which is as close as she can come, I believe.

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I'm like you. I would like to put them under the tree earlier, but with 3 cats in the house it would be a big risk. I have one cat that must get into every bag or box he sees.. Another one that chews/bites plastic and paper, and a third (the 20 pounder) that would sit on boxes and crush or mishape them. :lol: They are quite the destructive trio. Plus we have to keep the bag cat out of the tree. He has bent several of the branches of our tree and caused whole sections to go dark. We have resorted to spraying him with a water bottle. So, we would be watering the presents daily. Sigh.... But I do love my cats. :D

We have six cats here. Four of whom would contribute to unwrapping/scratching open boxes, one would try to eat all the paper, and one would try to eat any plastic. The other two would just sleep on them. :)

 

AKA: All presents go under the tree late on Christmas Eve.

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Personally, I like to see gifts accumulate under the tree before Christmas so I can enjoy the prettiness for longer than an evening.

However, if there is a really special (read: much requested) gift, I might wait until the night before Christmas before that comes out.

I just don't see the point of wrapping presents in wrapping paper for them to tear it open in 12 hours or less. I want to enjoy it for awhile.

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We do it after the kids go to bed CHristmas eve.  Otherwise there is too great a chance of dogs or kids getting into them.

 

I know a few older people who had tree, decorating and gifts all appear that way when they were kids - they went to bed with nothing, woke up to a tree, stockings, and so on.  I rather like that idea, there would be fewer needles around.

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I want to enjoy the tree all December, and that includes looking at the beautiful wrapped presents under it. Frankly I wouldn't waste time or resources wrapping on Christmas Eve for presents that are opened a few hours later. The girls get stockings and one "big" gift (unwrapped) on Christmas morning that wasn't under the tree. Everything else is wrapped when I can get to it (just finished wrapping this morning).

Edited by Ali in OR
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I want to enjoy the tree all December, and that includes looking at the beautiful wrapped presents under it. Frankly I wouldn't waste time or resources wrapping on Christmas Eve for presents that are opened a few hours later. The girls get stockings and one "big" gift (unwrapped) on Christmas morning that wasn't under the tree. Everything else is wrapped when I can get to it (just finished wrapping this morning).

 

I wrap gifts long before.  Putting them out on Christmas Eve doesn't have to mean wrapping them on Christmas Eve.

 

Although thank you for reminding me to get to that!

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My parents used to put gifts under the tree in the days leading up to Christmas iirc. I don't put them out until after the children to to bed on Christmas Eve. I have small children and cats, so the gifts live upstairs in my room until then. (Actually, right now they're in my sewing room because it has a key lock so my small ones can't get in there.)

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As they get wrapped. Most years we travel over Christmas, so we often open family gifts before we leave. At this point, almost everything I've purchased is wrapped and under the tree. DH and DD still have stuff to wrap.

 

Fortunately, unless it smells like food, our cats don't tend to open packages unless they have dangling ribbons.

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They are put out as I wrap them.  Some years, I have even had a decorated box that stayed under the tree and as I bought things they had a temporary stay in the box, before wrapping.  All unwrapped presents are in my closet until they are wrapped, so if the kids want to peek, it isn't difficult to do. 

 

Santa presents are wrapped and put on on Christmas Eve when no one is home, just to let the little kids feel the magic.  I told dd10 about Santa this year, so I think I can skip that step for the 1st time in 22 years.  I will have to check with dd18 though, because traditions mean a lot to her.  

 

 

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Now we wrap and put all gifts under the tree as they are purchased. When my son was young, the gifts that were not from parents to him went under the tree as they were purchased or received. Gifts from parents to him went out on Christmas Eve, unwrapped. We did that until he was about fourteen, then it just became better to put the gifts out as they made their way into the house. 

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Dh put the first batch I wrapped this year under the tree while I was in the shower. That was okay, but I wouldn't have put that many out. I definitely wouldn't have put the legos out. They are too identifiable when shaken. I usually put a few out to make the tree look nice and then the balance after the kids go to bed on Christmas Eve.

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