Some people wait until Christmas Day to distribute and open gifts, while others are used to opening their gifts on Christmas Eve (a common German tradition). Others divided the gifts, opening some on Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas Day or even New Year's Eve. Christmas Eve is a day with all its own traditions and for many it is as important as Christmas Day. These may include attending a midnight mass, singing carols, or eating a specific food.
In some cases, people choose to wrap, gift and open all or some of their gifts on Christmas Eve. But if you have early risers, do you keep the line or do you give up? Before you know it, they'll give you Christmas presents with love, while the anxious eyes of those who give them, crossed your fingers, will see if you like what you'll find. Some people choose to avoid opening presents entirely on Christmas Day and prefer to open them the night before, on Christmas Eve. This means that when they wake up on Christmas Day, they immediately feel festive in their Christmas pajamas, ready to open presents.
Whether you believe in Santa Claus and have gifts in your stocking or are giving gifts to family and friends under the tree, when Christmas Day comes, most people celebrating the holidays will open Christmas presents. The early risers lived in European and South American countries, where Christmas festivities are traditionally celebrated on Christmas Eve. But there are still many timeless Christmas traditions, specifically those of Christmas mornings, that are especially nostalgic for families. They would turn on the tree lights, put on Christmas music, set up the video camera and pour themselves a cup of coffee before it was time to open the presents.
Some families also allow children to open a gift on Christmas Eve, as a fun sample of what to expect the next morning. But growing up I had a friend whose family opened socks on Christmas Eve and presents under the tree on Christmas morning. The easiest way to answer this question is to consider when you will last see the person you want to give a gift to before Christmas. However, I also open some presents on Christmas Eve, since that night we had dinner with my father's family.
If you want your family to focus primarily on the gift of Jesus and not on the gifts that Santa Claus brought them, it's perfectly acceptable to leave the great man dressed in red completely out of the equation.
