Would love to hear traditional gift giving that others have -

We have two sets each year - one for adults and one for the kids and try to find something new each year.

We try something fun for the kids each year in the family setting where we gather at my grandmother's house. Last year we made the kids put socks on their hands before they got to open their gifts....was fun to watch. One year we made a Christmas gift hunt where they searched for their gifts.

For the adults, the funniest one was the one I pulled on my grown kids last year....took some time, but was hilarious!!

Here is the scenario -

Each "child" (mine are 28, 25, 22 and 16) and their mate have 1 gift. I sat them in a circle on the floor and told them they all had to open their gift at the same time. They opened "their" gift, only to find out it was wrapped again with a tag that said "This gift must be opened by ____" with someone else's name on it. They had to pass it to that person, only to find when that person opened it, it was wrapped and gifted to someone else. At the end, each gift was actually wrapped 6 times and gifted to someone else. In the end, everyone got a gift, but watching the reaction on their faces and the hunt for "where's MY gift now?!" was priceless...the younger ones loved to watch the confusion, excitement, and anticipation that the "adults" were showing and the "elders" got a kick out of it as well.

You should be there at Easter time when the egg hunt comes about!!!!

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Rebecca

Wow, that sounds like fun! Our family just opens them! Although it's different depending on where we go! My family opens gifts one at a time! The kids get the gifts and pass them out and we open them! It takes forever, but you get to see what everyone gets! With DH's side of the family it's COMPLETELY different! Everyone passes out gifts to everyone and then all at once everyone tears into it! I was shocked the first year! Sad too, I didn't get to see the look on anyone's face to see whether they liked their gift or not! We don't get a lot of gifts, but since my boys do I'm constantly trying to watch and see who they got what from... I miss what the rest of the family gets! I definitely like it the way my family does it, although it's how I've always done it, so that could be why!

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That is a funny story! I'll have to remember that one! I would like to start doing that game where someone picks a gift, but someone can trade for it . . . . With our family, we might need a police patrol close by!

Right now, our tradition, is that the youngest kids who can handle it pass out the gifts from under the tree. Then, we open one gift at a time, starting with the youngest and going to the oldest. We keep repeating until all the gifts are gone.

Marlene

Our tradition is something we do before Thanksgiving, my grandmother started this when we were little bitty and it has been going ever since...
We all get together, (me and hubby and the kids, and both of my brothers and their families) and make dressing (stuffing), enough for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is fun, my parents make us dinner, which is frito pie, and help with the kids while the rest of us make the dressing. My grandmother has been gone for the past 2 Thanksgiving so keeping this going has been pretty important to us. This year my neice is getting to notice that it is a tradition and asked if it is something that they will do when they get older.
We started teaching the older ones, 9 and 7, how to start making the dressing so they thought that was great.

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aka: sara

Wow that must have been alot of work finding all the right sized boxes, wrapping them and making sure you got the right name on all of them. Sounds fun though.

Every Christmas Eve we have a grab bag. It started with my mil's family when she was a kid.

We get a big garbage bag and everyone that comes to Christmas Eve brings small wrapped gifts to add to the grab bag. Then everyone sits around the room and passes the bag around and takes a gift out until the bag is empty. You can end up with some crazy things......and some great things too. Then in the end people can barter and trade gifts. It's very fun.

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Jodie....Wife to Andrew (1995)
Mommy to Riley (2000) and Wyatt (2003)

well for the last 3 years we have stayed home as a family on christmas eve. we eat pizza and open presents early(except for santas stockings and presents those are christmas morning) we watch movies and eat popcorn with plan m &m's. just have fun as a family instead of running everywhere. on christmas day we wake up have a huge breakfast then go to the inlaws by 1pm.

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SILENCE IS GOLDEN BUT DUCK TAPE IS SILVER.