PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

The thread on the NW board got me thinking...what do other parents do with gifts that are supposed to be from Santa? Will you wrap all of the gifts? Or, will you leave all the gifts unwrapped, and display them under the tree?


Growing up, my parents always left everything unwrapped, and I believe that created more of the 'WOW!' factor on Christmas morning. The only gifts that were wrapped were the one that were from my parents, not Santa. I will probably do things the same way for Paul.


What does everyone else do for their kids?

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

What do you mean??? Santa doesnt exist???


Well I am going to wrap all the presents. I am putting the ones from us out now then 'Santa' is going to bring more on Christmas Eve while she is nestled all snug in her bed with visions of boobie dancing in her head.

I think if I left all the presents from Santa unwrapped then she would be more interested in playing with them and not interested in working (opening the others) to see whats inside.

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

I grew up in Queens and the houses didn't have a chimmney for Santa to come down so my parents used to tell me that Santa had a magical power to get into the house with the presents....hey, I was a kid, what did I know??? lol

ETA: we did have the chimmney but no fireplace.

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

We lived in Brooklyn and we didn't have a chimney either. I never questioned how he got in the house though..
I guess I didn't care since he always seemed to leave me lots of great stuff!

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

How about this.... I lived in Queens too and we did have a chimney but no fireplace. We NEVER questioned or even thought about how Santa went down the chimney and obviously landed in our boiler!!!!!! LOL To get us to go to bed, we would call Grandma in the Bronx and she would tell us that she just saw him overhead, so he will be to us real soon! We knocked each other over trying to get bed and get to sleep!!!!

We left him cookies and milk, and carrots for the reindeer, just crumbs were left the next morning. My mother would always point out the dirty 'hoof' prints on the carpet.

Our presents were all wrapped (except when we got bikes) from Santa and our parents. Their gifts were under the tree before but they placed Santa's under after we went to bed. Stockings were from Santa and were unwrapped goodies. Before unwrapping gifts, baby Jesus had to be taken from behind the manger and put inside.

I think I will keep these same traditions and incorporate any that DH can remember for the little one next year. I love wrapping gifts and it extends the fun! It was fun getting lost in all the paper and watching my mother frantically try to retrieve every bow, ribbon, and salvagable tag she could grab to save for next year!

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

Well Santa came right to our front door, and we didnt think twice about a chimney (Queens girl here too )
I remember on Xmas morning, we'd hear a knock at the door, and we'd open and see COLD presents with snow still on them sitting in the doorway!
We were BEYOND EXCITED!

Johns parents would also make the presents cold, (leave em outside for a bit) and then maybe put a little snow on them too, and leave little bits of snow tracks in the house...

Our tree is right by our fireplace, so we have the perfect setup now

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

Santa leaves them unwrapped away from Patrciks other toys.

In Ireland he might leave them under the tree.
And his stocking is placed at the end of his crib.

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

Long Island girl here who grew up with a chimney and no fire place! My parents told me that Santa had a spare key to our house!!

I will probably wrap Nicky's gifts because, well... for lack of a better reason, because Santa always wrapped MINE!

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

Another Queens girl here, and not for nothing but it never occurred to me until now that we had no fireplace for Santa to come down!! I did have the chimney stack in my closet, so maybe he came down that and opened my closet w/o me knowing? But then again, there's no hole in the wall in the closet, so how did he get out of it? Hmmm.....

No. 2 Tangent Queen is back!!

Ok, what was the question again? Oh, right the gifts..... in my house they were always wrapped and said 'From Santa' (in my mother's handwriting that I never caught on to either -- how dumb am I? ), so I guess I'll be doing the same thing for the Little Bear Cub!!! Actually I was doing that for her daddy since we got married!

Now if I would just get my butt out there and do some actual shopping of these gifts, then I'd be alright!!

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

I have a special Santa key that we can leave outside our door when Molly is old enough to understand the whole Santa thing but we would like to get a fireplace so maybe by then we will have an easy answer

All of our gifts were always wrapped, unless it was a bike or other large gift. I still wrap everything, including almost all stocking gifts.

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

Our gifts were always wrapped and we got gifts from both our parents and Santa. When you stopped believing in him you only got gifts from my parents. So my brother at like 8 stopped getting gifts from Santa because he didn't believe in him. This of course caused me to believe in Santa till I was 13. We will do the same for Damien.

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

I will leave them unwrapped if they are from Santa and out of the boxes if necessary for the WOW factor.

Re: PARENTS - spinoff of Newlywed - How does Santa leave gifts in your house?

Growing up our gifts were always wrapped. The tree was left bare and somehow on Christmas Eve the gifts all wrapped and tagged 'from Santa' and placed under the tree. I did the same for my kids and they never questioned it. I cannot imagine not unwrapping gifts and just leaving them out in the open. I think it is so much more fun to have to unwrap each one and wonder what it might be.