Christmas Morning Traditions

Last year, a dear friend had an ongoing deliberation with her husband regarding the wrapping of Christmas presents for their young children.  Her family traveled a distance for the holiday and her parents just couldn't transport the gifts and wrap everything, so nothing was ever wrapped.  Barbie was out playing in the Dream House, sweaters were folded under the tree, etc.  Her husband balked at this idea, coming from a home where everything was wrapped.

I shared with her that my family was kind of a hybrid, clothes was always in boxes and wrapped and big toys were out for us to play with.  Although I only remember a few toys ever being out like a bike or a cradle for my Cabbage Patch dolls. What I do remember is the actual unwrapping of presents and that my parents used to make us each go one at a time which meant it took forever!!  I just wanted to tear into everything, but my mom insisted that she see our reaction to every present, even if she knew we were unwrapping underwear. 

Over the last few weeks, my facebook friends have pondered this same dilemma; wrap or don't wrap your kids presents.  As I think about it, I totally understand why my mom wanted us each to take our turns opening everything.  If she was going to shop and wrap for us 3 kids, she was going to get some simple joy out us opening everything. 

Besides the prolonged unwrapping, my parents also tortured us Christmas morning.  We were not allowed to wake them up and go downstairs until 7am.   We also all had to be up together with robes and slippers on (my brother slept in footed PJs for years to skip the need for slippers and "save time" that morning), with our hair and teeth brushed, and had gone to the bathroom, then we could wake up mom and dad.  That's when the real torture began.

My parents both had to get out of bed, go to the bathroom, brush their teeth and hair, put in contacts, and find robes and slippers.  Then we could move to the top of the stairs.  The suspense was always killing me at this point, I was bursting out my skin.  But of course, we couldn't just go downstairs yet, nope.  Coffee had to be made, tree lights turned on, camcorder set up.  My dad did these things while my mom sat with us at the top of the stairs.  We always jockeyed for good positioning going down the stairs and I only remember getting to go first one year when I was on crutches.  Finally, my dad would call up and announce that we could come on downstairs and see what Santa left us. 

I know this drove me crazy as a little girl, but it was fun and it completely added to the experience. My sister and brother and I laughed and giggled together on those mornings and now jokingly complain as grown-ups as we remember how slow Dad was. 

Now that my boys are 1 and 3, I'm starting to think that we might be able to start torturing them this year.  They won't fully get it this year, especially the little one, but it might fun to start the tradition early and see what kind of fun we can create for our own kids. 

Were your Christmas mornings like this or do you have another fun tradition that we can start?