Santa does not wrap presents

[orangerful]

Christmas is juuuuust around the corner! I'm so excited! I love christmas. I love giving and getting stuff. We get to stretch out christmas for a 5 days this year! Friday, we go up to jimithingy's grandma's for dinner and presents. Then we have christmas day on Sunday for us to exchange gifts and also to see my family for food and presents. And then Monday or Tuesday we'll be driving up to NJ to see jimithingy's parents! Crazy times!

Anyway, I'm working tonight and it's pretty slow. Everyone must be out doing their holiday shopping. Which means I'm going to ramble in here in the hopes that someone will respond and amuse me.

So, what was the christmas night/morning (assuming you celebrate christmas) routine in your house?



When I was a kid the routine was usually like this - I'd vote for midnight mass because that meant we got to stay up late! And staying up late means sleeping is easier because you're tired, because on christmas eve, I was hyper and anxious and could hardly ever fall asleep fast. I'd put some cookies out on a plate with some milk (though sometimes I'd forget and they would just be there when I woke up). The only presents under the tree when I went to bed were ones that had arrived from relatives over the past month.

Christmas morning I always woke up earlier than I wanted to. Well, than my parents wanted me to. So I'd lie there in my bed and wait for some sound that they were awake. My mom would usually give a time, say 8am, before I was allowed to go in and wake them up. My dad is an early riser anyway so I could usually here him wandering. He had to go set up the camera before I was allowed out of my room. My mom would usually start making coffee and arrange the presents. Then my dad would give us the okay to come out. So then I could walk down the hallway to where the tree was and be amazed!

Santa doesn't wrap gifts in our house. If Santa brought it, it was unwrapped and sitting under the tree. These were usually large gifts, or gifts that were difficult to wrap anyway (our ps2 and my E.T. stuffed toy that talks) though occasionally Santa would just toss random dvds into the tree, letting us fight over who really got Spaceballs. My mom usually wrapped everything the night before and didn't usually bother with labels, so she was in charge of handing things out. Occasionally, we'd have a mix up; I'd start to open something and she'd snatch it out of my hands and switch it with whatever zauber_vz was starting to open. hehe. It made for funny moments.

I was also all about the opening of my gift all the way. I think that was because my mom was usually starting breakfast and my dad wanted to get lots of camera angles, so I'd just unpack the toy while I was sitting on the floor. I still do this today - I open my DVDs and CDs and look at the inserts before moving on to the next gift. If you give me or my mom jewelry, we'll usually just put it on right there, in our pajamas.

After the present opening, we'd have a nice big breakfast and the last thing we would open would be the advent calendar. My mom made our advent calendar, it is made out of wood and it's painted and she gets to fill the doors each year. First time, it was those little sponge capsules that disolve in water. One year it was chocolates. Then we had a few lego years, which were awesome because you finally got those last few pieces and the actual PLANS on the 25th!

the rest of the day was usually spent trying to enjoy as many of our gifts at one time. DVDs were playing while clothes were tried on while books were shelved while toys were cuddled. And, of course, a nice big yummy christmas dinner that night with lots of food.

I think we only had one or two christmas' not in our house. I know we had at last one in Maine. I'm not sure if we ever had one with my other grandparents or not. At least, not a christmas morning. When they lived close by, we would go over to their place for dinner.

So, what did you do back in the day, when December 25th rolled around?

Comments

[miss-tinkermel.livejournal.com]

OMG! persephones_rev and I were JUST TALKING about the whole "does Santa wrap presents?" debate. In her house it was the tradition that Santa did not wrap or label any of the presents. In my house growing up (and in her hubby's house as well), Santa always did. We left out our wrapping paper for him and somehow magically he had the time to wrap all of the presents before leaving to the other billions of children's homes. I don't think this makes much sense to Perseph, but I think when you're a child, you tend to not question these things..

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

jimithingy told me that Santa wrapped gifts for him too. In fact, he got gifts from Santa, Mrs Claus, and usually one from each Reindeer.

I told him Santa went in alphabetical order so he didn't have time to wrap by the time he got to the Zline house. So he just tossed what he could under the tree, ate cookies, and made a run for it. Also, the gifts Santa left were usually very shareable. Things for both me and my brother, so it cut down on the "who gets to unwrap the gift for both of them?" stress.

It was a bit of torture though, smiling for my dad's camera while you could see toys you wanted out of the corner of your eye...sitting there...unwrapped...waiting...

btw - say hello to perseph for me! I haven't heard from her in forever :(

[bittertwee.livejournal.com]

My family continued most of our holiday traditions well past the point where we were all old enough for it to be a little weird. BUT- once we stopped, I swear Santa stopped coming for a little while, and then suddenly he's been coming again the past few years. And it has nothing to do with me having been particularly virtuous (although I have been.. sadly). Rather, I think it had to do with my parents not wanting to wrap big gifts. So yeah, in our house Santa never wrapped presents, and he usually brought the biggest or oddest shaped stuff.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Santa is so lazy!

I'm actually quite pleased to see that this Santa debate goes beyond our apartment! I just thought AD or my family was weird. Well...beyond what I already knew...