i have 3 little ones - they are 2, 5, and 8. several friends/parents of their friends have commented that they're surprised i have all the gifts wrapped and under the tree(been there since shortly after thanksgiving) and that the kids don't "get into them"... so, just curious if others put the gifts out way ahead or if you keep them put up until Christmas?
edited to add: just wanted to clarify, obviously santa gifts aren't out yet, those come out after bedtime on Christmas Eve and aren't wrapped, same with stockings, they are empty until then... i just remember having a lot of fun as a child looking at the gifts and trying to guess what was in them - my kids looks at the gifts, when they're first put out, they may lift them to get a sense of the weight/etc of the package, but have always known not to open them - to me, having the gifts out there adds to the anticipation :) like someone else said, i am not one that put all my nice stuff away when i had kids either, i have several wine racks full of wine, etc. that my kids have just been taught not to mess with now, my dogs, not so much ;) i have a doberman that likes to pull the bottles off the wine racks just to get my attention if she's feeling neglected lol. the dogs have been curious about their stockings, they're empty now, but they remember from years past having dog safe chocolate covered bones - but that's all it amounts to with the kids and dogs - curiosity and excitement, no opening of gifts... the kids DO get one present on Christmas Eve night, it's a pair of freshly laundered and wrapped Christmas pajamas - my oldest is 8(9 the day after Christmas), and he still looks forward to getting his pjs!
Yes. My kids are older now, but even when they were toddlers we put gifts under the tree. We taught them that gifts weren't too be touched until the appropriate time, just like other objects in the house that weren't for little hands. It was no problem.
Everything but the gift from Santa gets wrapped and put under the tree as soon as I come home with them. My kids are 4 and 10 and don't mess with them. They're more interested in the ornaments on the tree.
Yep, all of the gifts besides the big 'Santa' gift are wrapped and under tree. Stocking gifts are wrapped but not in the stocking yet. My son is almost 4.
Of course they are under the tree.
Children need to learn to not open gifts till Christmas otherwise you will be at other peoples houses and they will not know to not open the gifts.
I also did not put away my nice things when our daughter was a child. She and all of the children that came to our home learned to look with their eyes not with their hands.
It is just like the Christmas tree. I had the lower branches blank and had ornaments our daughter could hang up any way she wanted over and over.. But the grown up ornaments were just to look at, not to play with.
We just got our tree up and decorated yesterday.
Gifts are found under the tree Christmas morning.
Until then there's nothing there and the stockings hang empty.
I'll have a few days off work before the school winter break starts next week, so I'll be wrapping up everything then.
Years ago we babysat our neighbors cat at our house while they were away on a trip.
On Christmas morning the cat was lounging under the tree in the middle of all the presents like he was the king of Christmas!
He had so much fun playing with all the ribbons and bows as we unwrapped gifts.
He was a wonderful cat.
No gifts under our tree. My kids know enough to leave them alone. The cat not so much.
We put books under the tree. After the tree got set up, from when our kids were little to even now that they're grown, we put books all around the tree. We have religious books, Max Lucado books, funny books, Golden books, board books, cloth books, The Polar Express ... as long as they are Christmas themed. It was nice to see the kids, when they were little, in their pajamas, lying on the floor under the tree reading books. I always felt that they were able to enjoy the tree and all the lights without being told not to touch anything. In fact it was the opposite. Touch the books! Read the books! Those Christmas books get put away with the decorations and lights and come out every year. After the kids went to bed on Christmas eve, we put the gifts out.
I keep presents for those in my household up until Christmas so "Santa" can bring them (and so my kids don't see what Mom and Dad bought them either). Presents that we purchase for everyone else (Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles, and/or cousins/nieces & nephews) are wrapped and under the tree.
We used to, but this year we have a puppy who eats anything, so we can't. I usually just put out the presents from relatives as they arrive. Then, the ones from us and Santa go under the tree for Christmas morning.
we put all the gifts under the tree the day before Christmas Eve only because the cats will run and prance and tear them apart . so it has been a tradition that they get stored in the closet or left in the box it was mailed in until then.
Ally sons gifts from mommy and daddy as well as the grandmas are under the tree. His Santa gifts will come Christmas eve of course. He asked once and we told him he couldn't open them til Christmas and he said ok and hasnt asked since.
We don't put our gifts out before Christmas for a couple of reasons... none of which have to do with children.
1. Our cats are a pain in the ____ and would destroy them.
2. We travel to FL, so when things are wrapped, they go into my closet to be packed!
We have some gifts under the tree.....but they are pushed way to the back so DS can't get at them (he is 2).
I am surprised he hasn't tried to crawl under the tree yet to get to them, but they seem to have escaped his radar for now...
Yes, there are presents under our tree. My son knows not to mess with them until Christmas. The gifts under the tree to our son is only from my husband and I. The gifts he gets from "Santa" are displayed (not wrapped) Christmas eve, so when he wakes up Christmas morning and walks into the family room, it is so priceless how excited he is! If only the "magic" for him could last forever. :) We do let him open one gift from us on Christmas Eve.
I'm the same as you...gifts have been out since shortly after Thanksgiving...and I run a daycare! My belief has always been that kids will learn to respect their environments more if we teach them...and the kids LOVE to look at the gifts!!
I did allow my own 2 kids (11 & 12) to pull em all out, shake em and guess ONE TIME! (I do remember how fun it was to look under the tree to find my own and guess what I was getting.) They haven't bothered the gifts again.
And even though the secret of Santa is out, we still act like he is coming...because "Christmas is about believing in things you can not see." This also goes to WHY we are really celebrating! So, Santa gifts will be "dropped off" on Christmas Eve, along w/ stockings being filled! It's a fun tradition I don't plan on stopping anytime soon! Or ever, maybe! :)
Well, that would require already having them wrapped, right? That knocks me out of the running for that idea! LOL
Seriously, the non-Santa gifts might be "under the tree" a day or so before (not my son's!) but I find it to take up too much room to put everything out and I wouldn't want it like that for several weeks.
The gifts we "take" somewhere are generally in shopping bags in the master bedroom until we're leaving the house for that destination.
Yep. All the ones that have been wrapped thus far. I HATE waiting until the last minute to do it. Too many other last minute things to do that night as it is!
We have a 19 month old and a 4 year old. No issues here. We just told them that they have to wait until Christmas.
AND, thank goodness Santa doesn't wrap presents!
yes, i do every year. Kids can be told "no" as soon as they can walk or crawl to get into stuff.
My youngest opened a gift one time when she was 1, she didnt know it was wrong but she figured it out. Luckily it was a friends gift.
no.
1) curious kids
2) lazy mom hasn't wrapped anything yet
not necessarily in the order :)
I always wrap as I get them and put them under the tree. I've been doing it since before we had kids and now my kids are 7 & 4. If the kids are used it it they pretty much leave them alone. The only gifts I don't put under the tree are ones for my pets because they'll sniff them out and mess with them.
**EDIT: I have my tree up and presents under it now. My toddler is leaving the gifts alone! She helped me wrap and put them under the tree. The whole time I talked about how the presents were for Christmas and that it wasn't time to open them. She is perfectly happy to just show off her tree with the presents under it to anyone who visits. *** I don't even have my tree up yet! I've always put the presents under the tree as I get them wrapped. I'm curious to see what my 2 year old will do this year. Never had a problem with the cats and dog tearing them up. We've always had a rule that if a present gets peeked at, or "accidentally" unwrapped, it goes back to the store. I've never had to enforce it. Merry Christmas!!
Yes, I have presents under our tree.
As a kid I LOVED the anticipation aspect of Christmas...so I torture my kids too! Ha!
Mine are 8, 6 & (almost)4
and they DO NOT get into them!
Mine are 3 and 6. Some presents are under the tree. They have been told that if they touch them, then they don't get them. So they don't touch. But they are mostly obedient kids too.
We don't have any out because of a curious almost one year old. The lower third of the tree isn't decorated for that reason also. It's just not worth hounding him constantly over the tree and the presents. I will say he has finally graduated to just petting the tree and hooting in excitement at the sparkly lights.
Unless you want broken gifts and unwrapped presents and torn wrapping paper then Heck No. My little one is into everything I have a 18 month old so No!!! She'll see the presents x-mas morning.
I'm getting there slowly but surely! My 7 and 4 year olds know that if they open the presents, they go back to the store. As for the 1yo, he's ripped the ribbons off once or twice, but we're working on it!
we did but its driving my 4 year old crazy!
I put them out as I get them wrapped. It drives my son nuts and I am sure when my daughter notices she will be a bit of a challenge in keeping her out of them. I have 3 under the tree so far and she hasn't noticed.
I do not put all of the kids presents out in advance though, some of those are reserved to go out Christmas Eve night.
I've put relative gifts under the tree in the past, and my kids never touched them. I don't anymore because I have a real tree and the pine needles get all over the gifts and I need room to water the tree. So I just keep them downstairs.
My kids are older, 15, 12 and 9. I basically put them under the tree as I buy them and wrap them. This weekend my 9 yo son said, oh, I'm going to get up in the middle of the night and open it and retape it. I told him, go ahead, then when you really open it, you can think of how you cheated and it isn't fun anymore. So hopefully he will think about that and not peek!!!
Mine have been under the tree since the weekend after Thanksgiving and I have a 5 yr old girl and 2 yr old boy. They get excited to see them under the tree, but they don't bother them at all. They helped place them under the tree after they were wrapped and know that they're not opened until our Christmas celebration.
omg! omg! omg! do you KNOW how hard it is to figure out that it is a record album under that wrapping paper when someone carefully tapes a Popsicle stick upright to it so it looks like an Egyptian Pyramid?!?!?!
oh the memories!!!!!!!!!!!!!
shake shake shake,
shake shake shake,
shake your package....
uh huh uh huh, that's the wa,y uh huh uh huh
A. - Age 45, wishing I was 5 right now.....
There's no way there could be presents under the tree....Santa doesn't come til Christmas Eve! :)
No but I got tired of everybody guessing what was in them. They knew better than to touch but they still could tell you, oh this is clothes, that one is a book, and that one is a video game, etc...This goes for my husband too, lol.
This is the first time in a long time we have been able to put presents under the tree ahead of time. Last year, our two year old thought they were birthday presents and kept ripping them open. Now at three and six, they stay out of them. Yay.
Nope. Nothing goes under the tree until after they go to bed on Christmas Eve. I did wrap a few small things, but I let them open them because they were meant to be before Christmas gifts anyways.
So Christmas morning will be a huge surprise and that's how I like it :). It's always a wow factor.
My parents live 10 minutes away and we do gifts with them on Christmas Eve...but if they lived far away I'd put theirs under the tree when we got them. My MIL is good for getting us the kids gifts by the end of December :). So if I get them on time, I don't put them under because I don't want to let them down if they come late one year.
Yes!! We always put out our gifts. Santa delivers his after bed on Christmas eve and those are never wrapped, always assembled with batteries and ready for immediate play. (Santa doesn't need packaging on his magical toys) lol
Yes the kids may make an attempt or two to guess what's in the boxes but for the most part they know not to open them. Gifts under the tree is part of the magic of the holidays!
I've always added as the time draws nearer. One or two the as soon as wrapped. Then another one or two every couple of days until they are all there save a handful for Xmas eve after the kids are gone to bed (Santa)
My tree is full of wrapped presents. They are mostly for other people and have been under there for weeks. Our kids did just wrap one present for each other yesterday and are both anxious to open them but only talk about it. We exchange family presents on Christmas Eve, bake cookies for Santa etc.. Basically we celebrate 'our' family holiday the day before all the craziness begins :) Our santa wraps all presents (fully assembled) as the kids are still little and enjoy unwrapping them. They are 2 and 5. Enjoy your holiday!
No, we never put any gifts under the tree til after kids were sleeping on Christmas Eve. We also only have a tree up and trimmed for less than a week before Christmas. It would never occur to me to have gifts under the tree before Christmas.
No, there isn't a single present under our tree. My twins are three, and they'd tear them apart!
Had a couple "fake" ones.. I know my 4 yr old wouldn't be able to resist opening them... but he surprised me and did... the puppy not so much! Glad they were fake ones due to the wrapping tore off and the corner of the boxes chewed up. lol
We did until this year. Right now the kids are so interested in it and when we did put two presents under it - my daughter asked at least 2x a day when she could open. So they disappeared and they no longer ask! I think in the future I will continue to put them under the tree. Just not right now!!
I love the idea of putting books under the tree. We have a lot of Christmas themed books so I may do that!! We have a live tree so we do need to be able to get under it to water it.
Nope, NO CHANCE. My 4 1/2 year old would open them in a heartbeat. We still have to open a lot of them and get them set up and put in batteries. So far neither one of us has gotten the Leapfrog back out since I downloaded whatever it needed downloading.
I have kids aged 6, 4, 2, and 1 and I put all the presents under the tree. I just like how the tree looks with presents under it. I think it curbs some of the curiosity too. When I was little, my parents hid them, so I'd go looking for them. Out in the open in the family room, they can't exactly go snooping and open the presents where dad and I are constantly. They get excited seeing new presents pop up everyday and counting how many are under the tree etc.
