I was just wondering, for those who celebrate Christmas… when do you usually open your gifts?

I just finished reading a load of Christmas-related blog posts and from the looks of it, my family is one of the few who open gifts before midnight on Christmas Eve. Have we been doing it the wrong way all this time?!

But anyways… today is Christmas!! Our relatives came by last night to eat and open gifts, and my eldest sister who lives in Ottawa is staying for a couple of days. This meant that our house got pretty crowded yesterday with twelve people under one roof. Nope, it’s never a quiet Christmas in my family !

We took the traditional Christmas family pictures, saw that someone moved in one of the shots, took retakes, took some more pictures AND THEN we ate. There was a lot of food to go around like the carrot cake we made below, leche flan, roasted chicken, cheesecake, etc., but the main star of the show was the honey-glazed ham. It was so huge that, even now, we’ve still got leftovers in the fridge!

After that, we went and opened our gifts! I was really happy that I took pictures of my family’s reactions as they opened their presents. The happy look on their faces is just priceless. I’m glad everyone liked what I bought for them.

The night ended with an exchange of goodnights and hugs as we said goodbye to each other. Only one of my cousins stayed over for the night, and since I got him Up on DVD for Christmas, we decided to watch it! Even though we’ve all seen the movie before, all of us still cried at that sad part in the beginning—even my cousin (he tried to deny it saying that he had a sudden cold). It really is such a beautiful beautiful film.

We finished the movie at 3 in the morning so I was really really tired. I woke up at 3pm this afternoon, ate some leftovers from last night, spent some time online, and then we drove over to our family friend’s place and ate some more. All us ‘kids’ watched Pirates of the Caribbean and some other shows on TV while the parents chilled upstairs, discussing the benefits of befriending their kids on Facebook. *facepalm*

Since I’m terrible at recalling what I receive on occasions like birthdays or Christmas, I will list down what I got:

• “I am not a paper cup” cup in red - from my sister
• American Apparel tights in Bordeaux - from my eldest sister
• Fluffy, warm, red Christmas elf slippers that play music - from my older brother (don’t know how they’ll look when it isn’t Christmas anymore.. LOL)
• Green earphones - from my younger brother
• “I Am Neurotic: (and so are you)” by Lianna Kong - from my eldest sister
• A Beatles encyclopedia - from my mom & dad
• A red scarf from Urban Behaviour - from my mom
• A green striped sweater from Bluenotes - from my cousins
• $$ - from my aunt
• A purple striped shirt, flannel pyjamas, dark gray leggings, and a black cardigan - from my mom

I’m curious to read about how your celebrations went!

1. Posted by Aisling:

Usually we open our gifts on Christmas morning. This year we did it on Christmas Eve, because we needed to leave in the early morning to get to a city 3 hours away for a day with extended family. We were supposed to wait until 5, but I think we opened everything by 3 in the afternoon! :O

Sounds like you got some good stuff! Merry Christmas!

2. Posted by Oridusartic:

In my family, we open the Christmas gifts on the Christmas Day, during the family gathering in the evening.

I think there is no special rule about it.

3. Posted by Helene:

We open our presents before midnight at Christmas Eve too. That’s a tradition in Denmark. We have never opened them the morning after..
Cooool.. I have green earphones too! xD

Well Merry-late-Christmas to you too! Hehehe.

Oh no, don’t you worry I’ll just add them to the rest of my resources when I get the time to do it ;) Until then, the Christmas calendar will be there for people to download whatever they want to download

They did love the sweets!

4. Posted by emma:

we do celebrate it but not much in the sense of exchanging gifts hehe
but if i receive anything i usually try to wait, but sometimes i just open it lol