Stop: Hands Off

For fun the other night I was reading through some of my blog posts when I noticed that I'd mentioned a tradition that my family has about Christmas presents on Christmas morning. Let me tell you about that...

I should point out first that my parents are geniuses. Brilliantly evil geniuses. Though I love them to death, the tradition they instituted has remained intact for years (I'm talking like over a decade). As a future parent I feel I must also add this tradition to my own family. And you're probably wondering what it is...Well let me tell you.

YOU CANNOT TOUCH THE PRESENTS. LIKE AT ALL.

If that's not bad enough, Mom and Dad began to turn the presents so that the receivers name was on the bottom or facing the completely wrong direction, like toward the tree. We were honest kids so we didn't dare break the rule (It was Christmas for crying out loud. Tradition must stand!). That and we didn't want to anger the parental units. So we invented very clever ways to find out whose the "big" presents were. Most of this was before the age of smart phones, so putting your phone to the back of the present and taking a picture of the name tag was out of the question.

One of the favorite options open to us was to have one person lean around the present so they could see the tag, all the while their arms and pjs being held by sisters so that you didn't go crashing into the pile of presents (because that would NOT have gone over well at all!). Mind you, this is all happening in the middle of the night so coordination was not always the best. I believe there were some close calls, but the details are a little fuzzy.

I believe one of the reasons that my parents did this was so that they could see our reactions as we got our presents. Believe me either way we would have reacted, but we also loved the challenge. At first it was annoying, and when we first saw what they'd done that first year we were a bit upset by the surprise. Then we began to enjoy it. It's since become a game, although we really don't get up to look at presents anymore- only now we get up to fill stockings.

Although this past year we instituted a new stocking tradition. I loved it! Instead of our parents filling our stockings and we fill theirs, since there are now so many of us, each person bought stocking stuffers and secretly on Christmas Eve we each took turns filling the stockings with our contribution. On Christmas morning none of us knew what was in the stocking except for what we had put in. It was so fun for everyone to be surprised! This also added a large variety to what could possibly be in it. I think it's a tradition that will be kept, no matter who is or isn't at Mom and Dad's house now.

Okay, now back on task. So yeah, we couldn't touch the presents and it was incredibly difficult to see the names on any of the presents. It wasn't until it was time to pass out presents that we were given permission to touch them. Some people may find this harsh and strict, but really it just added to the mystery and fun of Christmas morning.

I would totally recommend this tradition to everyone! It adds a little variety and fun to your holiday. And I'm sure it can be tweaked a bit to fit your situation.

Merry Christmas!!