Christmas gifts are often exchanged on Christmas Eve (December 2), Christmas Day itself (December 2), or the last day of the twelve-day Christmas season, the twelve-day night (January). Once again, when you open the Christmas stockings it's totally up to you and your family. Before the Internet came to light, going to the center of a city with the mission of buying Christmas gifts was an annual event, and people would have to get all their gifts on these trips or face new expeditions at a later date. 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.
Some families also allow children to open a gift on Christmas Eve, as a fun sample of what to expect the next morning. The iconic publication insists that it is more acceptable to wait until the gap between the morning church service and Christmas lunch before going into gifts. Some people stop giving gifts until Christmas 12th (or even distribute them for 12 days), while other traditions say that gifts are given starting December 5th, when children leave their boots or shoes outside to go to St. Nicholas.
Others stay awake on Christmas Eve, waiting for the midnight strike on Christmas Day to fall under the tree. The tradition of giving at Christmas is centuries old and reminds people of the magical birth of Christ in a stable long time ago. These figures demonstrate how important the tradition of buying gifts at Christmas has become and how crucial it is for the retail sector of the UK economy. That night, the children leave their shoes near a window (similar to the tradition of Christmas socks) to fill them with the gifts they asked for.
For most children in the United States of America, Australia and the United Kingdom, gifts are opened on Christmas Day. But there are still many timeless Christmas traditions, specifically those of Christmas mornings, that are especially nostalgic for families. Generally speaking, the entire month of December (and the closer you get to December 25) is a perfectly acceptable time to give Christmas presents in most popular books.
