Dang, are we related? Only exception is I don't find the in-law's one at a time tedious because my wife's mom is literally her only family so it's just the three of us.

Whatever it takes to get it over with as quickly as possible.

I'd be all in favor of a free-for-all, everyone opens at once. They can thank the giver later. Unfortunately, my wife insists that each present be opened separately, with lots of photos taken.

The best Christmas was when I was in high school. We had always been allowed to open one present on Christmas Eve, and we would often successfully convince my parents to let us open a couple more. That year my dad proposed that we just open them all so that we could sleep in in the morning. Everyone agreed.

Who invited Scrooge to this thread? Bah humbug to you too :)

I LOVE watching my nieces and nephew open gifts, when I have ankle-biters of my own I'll love it even more. But isn't the anticipation part of the fun? I mean, I get it, when you're in HS the magic is gone and you'd rather just get the presents asap. But for the kids, especially the ones who still believe, that night before Christmas is friggin awesome. I'm gonna start another thread on this but I love the Christmas morning gift-opening, especially when there are little kids involved.

I try to imitate our resident AlanShearer by starting on the booze early if there is more than just my household present. Even then, the coffee gets some fortification.

I *fucking* hate Christmas gifting.

You guys are being kind of hardon each other.

More like they have a hard on for each other. Duffy has a man crush on BLeP and BLeP is playing hard to get.

Your dad sounds like a pragmatic man.

I think it all depends on the age of the family. Little kids don't have the patience to wait around; why torture them. Free-for-all!!

With adults, one-by-one works OK. Particularly if there's alcohol involved.

Of the three regular ring ins, my godmother was the only one who didn't stay over for the morning chaos. She was an artsy type and her gifts were things like a cane coat hanger, a knitted (covered) coat hanger, an Imperial Leather soap/talc powder combo ... for like a 10 yo boy! Needless to say there were several small children who were unnecessarily put under the stress of acting (grateful) each Xmas Eve.

Our ritual was dinner, the kids 'concert' - where we'd either singularly or together sing carols/play piano or read a small Xmas story - then getting one gift to open, usually our godmother's before she left.

Christmas for us doesn't have much meaning (we don't wait for a special day to give each other gifts as all days are special and we can give gifts whenever we want). On Christmas Day, we go to grandma/pa's house. The Wife and I are the only members of the extended family without children so pretty much all of the gifts are for the kids. Therefore, I randomly pick out packages from under the tree and open them for the kids. It makes them appreciate the concept of gift giving all that much more.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Please tell me how you accomplished this. I've asked for several years that we reduce Xmas gifts because of the insane amount of gifting in the family and how much unnecessary stuff gets purchased just to fill a gift quota. I hate seeing the wasted money for stuff that's not needed, goes unused, and randomness, particularly with my kids and when I'm trying to minimize to what we actually need and use. I don't know how to make ground with the family to reduce Xmas.

Man, I wish we were related because that sounds pretty nice. My wife's family get togethers run near 30 people. Opening gifts takes forfuckinever. And none of them really drink so if I dive into the booze it's frowned upon. And even if I did want to get my load on, because they don't really drink much, the selections provided are always weird and mostly unpalatable. Bud Light Platinum and Arbor Mist style weird and unpalatable. Thanks, I'm good.

Nice people and all, but my family is a hell of a lot more fun.

We do 2 Christmas's. One at my sister-in-laws with my wife's side of the family. They live a couple hours away so we can't see them on Christmas so we always go the weekend before. Makes actual Christmas much less stressful.
At their house it's youngest to oldest. Takes forever. By the time it's my father-in-laws turn, half the people are shit-faced and all the kids have left or don't give a shit anymore. It's awful.

At my parents on Christmas eve, all the cousins come over and at some point one of the kids wants to open his gift. Then it's on. In about 5 minutes, everyone has gotten their gifts and it's all over. It's a bit of chaos but I find it much better.

I think we could change it at the in-laws but my brother-in-laws wife loves getting gifts and loves attention. She'd throw a shit fit if she didn't get her 5 minutes of fame sitting in the "gift chair". And she's mid 50's. C'mon, give me a break. Plus she gives the shittiest gifts to everyone.