When do we open presents?

Welcome back to Blogmas! Today is day 6 and as you can see by the title the topic is opening presents!

So, every year our Christmas schedule changes depending on when/if grandparents are doing Christmas, when my or my husbands’ family is doing theirs, etc. We always get together to plan out days and times of when we will be where and if we need to bring anything other than ourselves and whatever gifts we have to give.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is generally when we will get together with my husband’s grandparents and extended family to exchange gifts and enjoy each others company and all the home cooked food! Unfortunately, we just lost my husband’s grandpa a couple months ago so we only have one set of grandparents to spend Christmas with this year. We normally pick a name from a hat and buy a gift for just that person/couple so that everyone gets one gift, except for the kids. Everyone buys for them. I am not sure what the plan is this year yet but it will more than likely be Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas that we get with the grandparents for Christmas.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day has pretty much always had the same schedule since I have been with my husband. When we bought our house we started doing Christmas at our house in the AM with his family (mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, and their two girls). Before we bought our house we both lived with our parents so we just did breakfast at one and then went to the others house a little later.

My husband is a very early riser on Christmas morning.. normally waking at around 3 am.. I believe I remember him waking earlier one year. The kids usually get up around 5-6 but this year Autumn, our oldest, has told us she needs us to let her sleep until at least 6 so that she gets all of her sleep. LOL. Once the kids are awake we venture down to the living room to see what Santa has brought! We do gifts and stockings at this time.

Around 8-10 my husband’s family will come over and we will have Christmas breakfast with them and then do gifts. We have tried a few different ways of opening gifts – letting the kids go first, everyone opening at once, one person opening all of their gifts at a time.. and I think it has been easiest for us to have the kids go first and then handing our all of our gifts and having one person open all of theirs and then moving on so that we all see what we got, people can get pictures, etc.

Right around lunch time or a little after noon we head to my parents house, eat, and do presents.

The girls are always hella spoiled and we have to fit it all in the car and then figure out where it is all going to go once we get home. Nevertheless Christmas is always a fun time for us and we enjoy every bit of it, even the waking up early part. LOL.

Come back tomorrow to read about handmade gifts, decor, etc.

xoxo