Tuesday, December 20, 2011

When do you open your presents?


When Husband was growing up, his family adopted the Christmas customs of their close friends who were Danish.  They had a special meal on Christmas Eve and then they opened their presents.

It was nice when we were ‘going out’ because I could spend the evening of the 24th with his family and at the crack of dawn on 25th I could hare around the M25 and arrive at my own home and I hadn’t missed anything because my family don’t open presents until after lunch on Christmas Day. (Realistically this could be as late as 3 or 4pm…)

When we got married we spent our early Christmas doing the same thing. I’m sure all parties were delighted there was no ‘them and us’ going on.

But when we had children and had one or two Christmases on our own, we had to negotiate.

So I told Husband, “I’m NOT opening my presents on Christmas Eve; that’s just crazy.” Poor Husband.

We have a special Christmas Eve meal (his tradition) which starts the festivities off early (my family might still be shopping for gifts at this point) and we have a table present (his tradition.) We do the altogether more average present opening after breakfast on the 25th (more my tradition.) We have the Christmas Creatures (my tradition.)

One of the customs I have willingly adopted from Husband’s upbringing is the family Christmas game. They had a new board game each year and yesterday I went out and bought ours:


6 comments:

BEAST said...

I still maintain that presents on Christmas Eve and stockings on Christmas morning, is twice the fun and extends the celebrations perfectly. Oh sorry, I didn't realise the negotiations were over.

cabin rental luray va said...

Thanks for sharing this post. I hope this Christmas gathering will strengthen your relationship and provide you lots of enjoyment.

Lou said...

nice one, Jenny & Merry Christmas to you and your family

We do the family game, from Santa (wink,) and this year it is Pirates of the Carribean. One year when we were liven gin bangkok we bought from Jim Thompson ' Lost in the City' it is a limited edition 131/1000- a fun game, with all the familiar landmarks

Liz said...

We're an after dinner family. (Apart from stockings, and, when we were little, one present to take to church. I always tried to spot an 'interesting' one and, without fail, would end up with a book.) Guests are frequently stunned at our ability to delay the present opening element!

Happy Christmas!!

Nose in a book said...

We always did stockings as soon as we woke up Christmas morning and then presents after breakfast. Since my brother and I are now grown-ups with no children of our own, we have temporarily foregone the stockings.

A few years ago I spent Christmas with my boyfriend's brother and his family and it was really odd for me. They didn't just wait until after dinner to do presents; all of Christmas morning was treated like any other day. No boozing, no silly games, no Christmas music. I suppose we all do Christmas our own way.

greens plus said...

I've encountered a lot. But this one works on me 100%!