The fact that I'm an only child (and only grandchild for some) coupled with the fact that my parents were like big kids themselves when it came to buying gifts meant that yes, I was a bit spoiled. Not obnoxiously so, we didn't have a whole lot of money, but I certainly got my fair share during the holidays.
First we had our Christmas tree with regularly wrapped presents underneath. Every year I snooped for Christmas presents and most often I found them in my mom's closet, but that never took the thrill away for me. On Christmas Eve night I would set my alarm so I could wake up in the middle of the night and go look at whatever Santa had brought for me. I didn't open anything or go through anything, I just wanted to see that it was there, then I'd go back to bed.
Santa was always very generous to me, so I must have been well behaved. Presents and my stocking were always sitting on the love seat waiting for me (even though I was not allowed to wake up my parents until 7 am - ugh!). My stocking (which was ginormous, I don't know what my mom was thinking when she bought it) was always packed with lots of small stuff (grapefruit at the bottom is a good space filler) like earrings, books, pencils, etc. Santa gifts were distinguishable because they were wrapped in pretty tissue paper with stickers used instead of tape. I always loved this about our Christmas morning and it's something we still do. In fact, I think my mom got the tissue paper wrapping idea from her mother and it's something I plan to do with Peanut.
How do presents work in your family? Are Santa packages different than others or do you lump them all together?
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We didn't really believe in Santa. I don't remember ever thinking he was real. My parents probably never led me to believe he was. I knew other kids believed in him, though.
We knew only our parents gave us gifts. Sometimes my mom would write from Santa on the gift tag, but we knew it was from them.
We always got our Santa gifts in our stockings. Santa purists, I guess!
At one of my grandparents' house, we always got pickles and/or olives in our stockings(!). Weird.
My parents always went shopping before Christmas and they would tell my brother and I they went to "pay Santa!". I didn't pass this on to my kids, but isn't if funny how I guess Toys R Us and now Best Buy (17 and 10yr old boys!!) are Santa. We do wrap Santa gifts in paper with Santa on it (different every year). And there is always a note from Santa mentioning things the kids did in the past year (and Rudolph usually takes a bite out of the note too!). The 17yr old has had fun helping with his younger brother...I know our playing Santa time is growing very short. Maybe we can stretch it out one more year!
Santa uses different paper at our house and leaves everything in the stockings. :)
When I was a kid, the presents from my parents were wrapped and the presents from Santa were not wrapped. Sometimes we had stockings, sometimes we had Christmas baskets (depending on whether or not we had a mantle). My dad is a minister, so we moved a lot and the houses varied. The presents in the stockings or basket were not wrapped either. We do pretty much the same thing with our kids, as it suits my lazy nature well. : )
My mom is a Christmas FREAK (seriously, she has a different Christmas sweater/sweatshirt for EVERY DAY IN DECEMBER... Gawd, I can't believe I just admitted that...but she's proud of it!).
Anyway, presents from our parents showed up under the tree through out Dec. Santa filled our stockings and also brought presents (wrapped, in different paper). I believed with my whole heart. I was so disappointed when I figured it out... It was so fun!
We do basically the same thing here- our gifts are separate, and Santa stuff appears on Christmas morn, after carefully leaving Santa a note and snack (and some carrots for the reindeer).
It is fun, believe in the magic of Santa. My kids love it too.
When I was growing up, the presents brought by Santa were never wrapped! They sat under the tree in their full glory with just tags on them to let us know who they were for.
My hubby grew up with Santa gifts wrapped in paper with Santa on it (different each year) No other present were wrapped in paper with Santa on it ever.
That is the tradition that we have continued with our son although, I kinda wish we had stuck with mine (a lot of time would be saved if they weren't wrapped!)
When I was a kid, Santa presents were not wrapped and were usually the biggest gifts we got so they weren't in stockings. I can't remember if our stockings were supposed to have been from Santa or not. I just remember a lot of oranges and McDonald's gift certificates in there....
I'm not sure what we're going to do in general. This year, due to family pressure, Bridget's Santa gift will have to be wrapped but it's not how I would normally like it to be.
Fun topic! Our Santa gifts were never wrapped. It was fun to go out to the living room and see the goodies brought by Santa. He always left 2 or 3 gifts plus stuff in our stockings. My husband's family did all gifts from Santa and all wrapped. So we are compromising and having some gifts from us and some from Santa...all wrapped. I love the tissue paper idea, I may steal that next year!
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