Holiday

[alicedee]

Growing up Santa never wrapped our gifts...each child had a separate little pile under the tree on Christmas morning.  It was cool, because there were 7 of us....so it looked like a toy store when we first came out and saw the tree with all those treasures underneath the branches!

Mom and Dad would steer us to "our" pile...."Oh Alicedee, I think these must be your gifts!"  As soon as we had gone through our things, we started looking/sharing with each other all the wonderful things we had gotten.

The whole gang still gets together as adults with our children and grands early in December ....everyone opens gifts at the same time.  There are so many of us we would be there all night otherwise!  Then we mingle and thank the various givers, and see what others received.

Works for our family.

[Mz iMac]

When the kids were small.....

The night before x-mas after the kids were asleep my husband would take a picture of the lit tree w/all the presents & I would video tape.

Christmas day before the kids woke up, I would settle myself on the couch w/my video cam.  Hubby hollored upstairs, "SANTA'S BEEN HERE!"

As the kids ran down the stairs, I had the video cam rolling.  The expressions on their faces as they ripped opened presents & marveled at the unwrapped gifts were priceless!

One year my youngest just stood there counting on his fingers & toes all the presents he got!

Another year, the only gift my oldest got when she turned 16 was $500 in $50 dollar bills (to do whatever she wanted to do) in an envelope pinned on the tree.  She cried all day & night.  To this day, she says it was her best Christmas ever.  To have all that on film is priceless.

Yes it was a free for all wrapping paper, ribbons, broken tree balls all over the place.  Hubby would start taking pictures of all the mess.

A few years ago I made slideshow DVDs of all those years & gave to each of my children to show their kids.  The grands get a kick out of watching their parents making fools of themselves when they were the grands ages.

[Annabellethecat66]

So, I don't understand.  Are you talking about when you were a kid growing up?  Or, are you talking about when you go to a person's house and everyone opens gifts?

My daughter always hosts her in-laws and my son-in-law's family and me because my other two girls live in other states.

I defer to whatever they want to do.  It doesn't matter to me.  I give people things all year long I'd like for them to have, so I don't care.

I just received my oldest daughter's list of 3 of her teenage children.  Her 7 year old son hasn't done his list yet.  I send all of them (especially the 7 year old things all year long).  Little kids don't get mail so rather than give them to him, I mail them.  It's fun for him when he gets home from school he finds mail from his grandma.

So, I'm not concerned about them knowing what I give them at Christmas.

I'd much rather let them pick out what they want.  Teenagers are very picky.

In our family we aren't interested much on presents.  Mostly, if we want something we just get it.

I can see where some like seeing a person open their gift.  It just seems like people are so into gifts they forget what the day is really about.

I always get thank you notes from my daughters and their children.  It doesn't matter what the gift is for or when it is given.  Even when I take them shopping, etc, I get a thank you card.

THAT's what is important to me.  If I do something or send a gift, take a minute and hand write a thank you and put it in the mail.  THAT is my pet peeve.

My family knows it.  If I take the time to do or get something they can take a minute to do that for me.  As far as anything else, it doesn't matter to me, but I wouldn't never, never think anyone is wrong or crazy for wanting something else.

We all have ideas on how we'd like our gifts or tasks shown as appreciation.  I think it's nice to want to see someone open each gift and thank the person.

Everyone is different.  That's what makes life so amazing.  We are all different.  Rather than criticize each other we should be kind and show appreciation and thanks however works best for the family members.

I hope everyone gets to see things the way they want to.

I will caution some though.  One thing I've always told my daughters and their children:  "If something is bothering you, tell the person who can do something about it.  If they don't bother to TRY to do something about it, but they do know, then the either can't or they don't care.  But at least you've told them".

Simple?  Right?  So if that's how you'd like to do it and it's possible, why not suggest it?  If they don't want to do it, then at least you've voiced your opinion and they do know.  I think you might feel better at least if you voice your opinion.  Just saying......

Perhaps you might approach it like, "I was wondering if just for this year we can try it like we did when I was young (or whatever) and why not do it like this....  I don't get to see them open and enjoy what I bought, this would help me."

Perhaps you might ask if they could do that with your gifts.  Or....maybe you could hold back on your gifts and hand them out AFTER all of the other one's are done.  Give them one by one.

There are other ways to do that.  You know the family better than we do.

My middle daughter is going through a terrible divorce.  She won't even get to be with her very small children this first Christmas alone.

They don't want to go with Daddy and his girlfriend and HER children and leave mom at home, but court ordered.  I'm sure some of you have experienced this.  It's sad when the children are the one's who suffer.

It's going to be really bad if my oldest daughter decides to go to Florida (where the middle is) and the middle's kids are with their Dad and everyone goes to their mother's house but them.

Divorce is a difficult thing.  Don't get me started.  My mother was married and divorced 6 times.  Once to my dad, 2 times to my little sister's dad and 3 times to my dad's best friend.

I never lived with her...lived with my Dad so I was spared.  My 2 dear sisters had to live through all of that mess.  And it was was mess.

Anyway, sweet @LillyBee2  please hang in there.  It might not seem like it but it will get better.

I think of divorce as the death of something.  The people have to mourn the loss and it does get better if the people involved work to make it better.

Take care and know I am thinking about you sweet girl.

[loriqvc]

@Mz iMac - My parents did the same thing with their videocamera! We were all required to share sleeping space in the basement on Christmas Eve just so everything could be set up overnight, and then we all ran up the stairs like crazy animals when it was finally time to get started (also signalled by my father bellowing and my mother filming). I really hope those tapes are around somewhere so they can be transferred; most of us hated being on camera and were kind of stinkers about the whole thing at the time, but I'm pretty sure we'd all enjoy looking back on those mornings now—and as you noted, the kids of the kids are sure to enjoy the "old-timey" fun!

[Foxxee]

My family would go nuts waiting for everyone to open their presents.  We open them at the same time paying no attention to what others got.  Even the dogs open theirs if they can.  Most of the time I help them.

We thank everyone when they're all opened.  

[SandySparkles]

We have no said order as to how we open our gifts. Each person gathers their presents, and starts opening them. We "gawk" over each of the gifts, and make sure we save the tags after reading them.😊

~~~All we need is LOVE💖

[grayhairdontcare]

Opening Christmas presents with my family and my husband's family was like two polar opposite events! My family was calm and did it without alot of craziness. As we each got married and had kids...we would all take turns and each "family" would open their gifts so everyone could see and all the tiny pieces that always came with the kids gifts didn't go missing. Then my mom had a dedicated space for the kids to work on their Legos or to do Playdo or set up their Barbies. My hubbys family was the total opposite...unbelievably loud + chaotic. It never failed 3 of my nephews would end up screaming and crying they lost a piece of something or some weapon was lost....and my sister in law would start tearing through all the trash bags and yelling at her kids to stop crying or santa was going to come and take everything back (which only made them scream and cry louder) then she would announce in her "teacher voice" (after my father in law would be ready to explode because he couldnt watch some stupid program on the TV and my mother in law would be snapping at himabout being a jerk ) "ooops... never mind..I found the piece in my pocket" then my other sister in law wouldn"t let her kids open anything until they got home..so she'd be running boxes + bags out to her car and her kids would be pouting and grabbing everybody elses stuff and my kids would be looking at me in sheer terror saying "when are we going home I'm scared grampy is going to yell at us"...Oh how I hated the holidays at my inlaws. 30 years later I still hate it and now all the kids are married and have their own kids who are the carbon copies of them and my boys (men) dread the chaos still. Thankfully my house is sane and calm.

[Annabellethecat66]

@LillyBee2  Thank you for your smiley (whatever that thing is).

Anyway, I hope you have a nice Christmas.  It's a hard time of year for a lot of people.

Those who aren't going through 'stuff' need to be kind to people who are going through 'stuff'.

I was just telling my 17 year old granddaughter everyone has 'stuff' and her 'stuff' is just as important that anyone's.  It's just how we handle our stuff.

Sometimes if we give our problems just a day or two it will all be a little better.

Us widows can you that.  Just getting through each day helps.  

Please continue to come here because I guarantee you we all have 'stuff' in our lives.  

We often lean on each other.  The good thing about it is incognito.  No one knows who the people are so if you feel blue or even happy.

If blue come here and there are happy people here who can show you some funny stuff.  If you are sad, people are sad too and we all understand.  Sometimes people just knowing how a person feels (another person) helps.

So, come here and unload your stuff...Or just be happy here...whatever gets you through the days...

Right other ladies?  We all have 'stuff'.

[ECBG]

At our house we start with a child and go in order around the room, one at a time able to enjoy their expressions and the surprises.  We were also able to capture a lot of it on film, today downloaded to the computer.

I wouldn't give anything for those little toothless grins!

My husband's family.  Forget it.  I'm sure she never gave anything like that a single thought.

Edited to say, We Santa did a toy display for each child and the excitement was amazing!

Our DIL wraps our grandson's persents.  I'll have to ask our son which he would have enjoyed the most, since he's done both now.

[panda1234]

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@on the bay wrote:

We also were to save every ribbon and wrapping paper too.

One of my aunts created beautiful presents and spent hours with my other aunt in mother in a bedroom wrapping.

Then the day after Christmas it was their tradition to go to the stores and get paper and ribbons at half price

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@on the bay The 50% off started two weeks ago. Funny how things change.