Santa wraps gifts - 1 under the tree and all the gifts in the stocking. He wraps them in different paper than the gifts from me, and every year, it's a pain in the ass to keep that special gift wrap out of sight. Part of me can't wait until my kid knows santa is a myth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wrapped. Santa has his own paper.

Same here. Santa's paper has pictures of Santa in it.

+1. There are usually one or two gifts (maybe Santa, maybe Mom and Dad) that are not wrapped like a bike or a play kitchen but everything else is wrapped and Santa gifts have paper with Santa pictures on them, with said paper very well hidden so kids don't see it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, surprised by these responses! I didn't realize unwrapped was even an option. I thought part of the Christmas morning magic was watching the kids unwrap things and see the surprise.

I realized it was an option after we had kids and my husband was shocked! Shocked! That I was wrapping gifts. Then he went on to tell me that he and his brother would wake up and go to the family room in the middle of the night, see what they got because it was all unwrapped and then go back to bed. How much would that suck for the parents? They put all the effort into Christmas gifts and then didn't get to see how happy their kids were because everything was unwrapped and the kids saw it already.

Eek! Now I am questioning my plans to not wrap.

Anonymous wrote:NO. Santa does not wrap. That's how you know it's from Santa!

+1.

That's was how it was for me growing up. Until my brother came along and then Santa got his own paper with his picture on it, because there was apparently a need to tag the gifts so the 10 yo girl and 2 yo boy didn't get confused about whose was whose.

Anonymous wrote:Unboxed batteried and ready to play

Same here. Santa brings one gift per child and it's the one thing DC really wants (so whatever they sat on Santa's lap and asked for). A play kitchen, for example, is put together on Christmas Eve so on Christmas morning the recipient sees it out and ready to play with.

All other gifts are wrapped and from mom and dad. The stocking is also filled on Christmas Eve, but that's still from us, not Santa.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This ridiculous question is why we don't do Santa. My goodness...get real problems.

Scrooge. OP did not identify a "problem." He/she just had a question. .

Not a Scrooge. But this is so silly and really, a waste of time.

THEN WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU WASTING TIME WITH IT?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This ridiculous question is why we don't do Santa. My goodness...get real problems.

Scrooge. OP did not identify a "problem." He/she just had a question. .

Not a Scrooge. But this is so silly and really, a waste of time.

Santa always gave one "big" gift that was not unwrapped (to date myself, one year it was a Cabbage Patch Kid). He also gave one or two other gifts that were wrapped (my mom had separate wrapping paper for Santa gifts and my grandmother wrote the gift tags so the handwriting was different). Part of the rationale was that we would get up early and go play with our "big" gift and my parents could sleep in a little more. Eventually, we would be unable to resist and we would run into their room, excited to tell them what Santa had brought. And then they were the ones who had to do the acting, pretending to be totally surprised.

When Santa visited the Mayflower he did not wrap.

There are more than enough wrapped presents under the tree (too many really), Santa does not wrap his, nor did he on either side of our family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, surprised by these responses! I didn't realize unwrapped was even an option. I thought part of the Christmas morning magic was watching the kids unwrap things and see the surprise.

I realized it was an option after we had kids and my husband was shocked! Shocked! That I was wrapping gifts. Then he went on to tell me that he and his brother would wake up and go to the family room in the middle of the night, see what they got because it was all unwrapped and then go back to bed. How much would that suck for the parents? They put all the effort into Christmas gifts and then didn't get to see how happy their kids were because everything was unwrapped and the kids saw it already.

I think I did that one year. And felt bad because (and this was well after I knew about Santa's real story), I knew I wouldn't be as shocked/surprised in front of my parents. I was super excited and happy when I saw it in the middle of the night. But I knew I couldn't pull off an acting job in front of them.

I try not to ruin surprises anymore, even when it's possible to figure it out. (Looking on dh's email or cc account for evidence of my gifts). Lesson learned!

Anonymous wrote:Wow, surprised by these responses! I didn't realize unwrapped was even an option. I thought part of the Christmas morning magic was watching the kids unwrap things and see the surprise.

I realized it was an option after we had kids and my husband was shocked! Shocked! That I was wrapping gifts. Then he went on to tell me that he and his brother would wake up and go to the family room in the middle of the night, see what they got because it was all unwrapped and then go back to bed. How much would that suck for the parents? They put all the effort into Christmas gifts and then didn't get to see how happy their kids were because everything was unwrapped and the kids saw it already.