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Gifts from Santa

Gifts from Santa:

  • Total voters
    156
DeaconCav06 said:
We started with unwrapped until i was about 8 years old. Then "Santa" switched it up.

True Story: My dad has dressed up as Santa every year for the last 5-10 years. My brothers and I need to give my parents some grand kids pretty soon. On second thought, I think I'll just keep practicing.
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This is pretty much how it is in my family. We were unwrapped until around the age of 10. Prior to then, the grandparents would come over every Christmas morning and see us with only the Santa gifts, then we would all eat breakfast. Then we stopped that and we started doing family with just us, which had some benefits. Christmas has changed over the years and will be changing again next year when I am married.
 
Always wrapped unless it was a bike or something big and Santa had different handwriting (he put hoods over his a's both at mom's and dad's houses).

Matt and I never discussed this before we were married because I had no idea there were households where Santa's gifts weren't wrapped. Luckily, he also never heard of having unwrapped Santa gifts. We're not sure what we'll do about the handwriting since the sample I just showed him was "too girly".
 
ChicdeaC said:
Always wrapped unless it was a bike or something big and Santa had different handwriting (he put hoods over his a's both at mom's and dad's houses).

Matt and I never discussed this before we were married because I had no idea there were households where Santa's gifts weren't wrapped. Luckily, he also never heard of having unwrapped Santa gifts. We're not sure what we'll do about the handwriting since the sample I just showed him was "too girly".
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My mom typed logos or used a pictograph for each child.
 
This is a new one for me...

Last week I went over to some friends' house who have a 5 year old and a 7 year old. They have a "magic" elf doll that sits around the house watching the kids to make sure that they have good behavior before Christmas. Every night he reports back to Santa at the North Pole and moves to a different spot in the house where he can watch the kids. If they touch the elf, though, he loses all of his magic.

At first I thought that it was a good idea b/c it keeps the kids behavior in check. Now that I think about it more, its creepy.
 
Wake4estMike said:
This is a new one for me...

Last week I went over to some friends' house who have a 5 year old and a 7 year old. They have a "magic" elf doll that sits around the house watching the kids to make sure that they have good behavior before Christmas. Every night he reports back to Santa at the North Pole and moves to a different spot in the house where he can watch the kids. If they touch the elf, though, he loses all of his magic.

At first I thought that it was a good idea b/c it keeps the kids behavior in check. Now that I think about it more, its creepy.
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He's called the Shelf Elf. There is a book on him! Kids love it. I used to work in a school. It was quite entertaining to hear the kids stories each day of where the the shelf elf was the previous day when they came home. Some ended up in the bath tubs taking a luxurious bath, one was found decorating the tree.
 
I think it's called Elf on the Shelf, and it's definitely creepy. I was talking to some of my running buddies about it the other day. Just something about some creepy elf sitting around watching your every move and reporting stuff to Santa, it would freak me out as a kid.
 
iodeac said:
I think it's called Elf on the Shelf, and it's definitely creepy. I was talking to some of my running buddies about it the other day. Just something about some creepy elf sitting around watching your every move and reporting stuff to Santa, it would freak me out as a kid.
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Yeah whoever pulls the shelf elf crap really needs to consider the psyche of a kid. When I was still little enough to believe in Santa, I threw a dirt clod at a car, then spent 3 months in absolute anguish thinking Santa wasn't going to bring me any presents.
 
ewww. I saw some Shelf Elf thing at Target the other day but had no idea what it was. Kind of weird.
 
Both of my cousins got their kids elf on the shelf. I was out with my cousin and her kid last week and apparently he's discovered his hitting phase. He hit her and she said, "You know the elf flies to Santa at night and tells him when you've been bad."

It's like a shock collar for a kid. He doesn't hit me though. We're boys.
 
I like the elf on the shelf idea since we don't do an advent calendar or any other kind of christmas countdown the elf is a way for the kids to get excited each morning as they look for their elf and is a fun tradition I think. I do admit he is a little creepy looking.
 
The whole Santa concept is a little creepy when you think about it.
 
ChicdeaC said:
I like the elf on the shelf idea since we don't do an advent calendar or any other kind of christmas countdown the elf is a way for the kids to get excited each morning as they look for their elf and is a fun tradition I think. I do admit he is a little creepy looking.
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That is exactly why the children I interfaced with loved the Shelf Elf. They really didn't care if the elf was watching the or not. What they loved was searching for the elf and seeing what funny things he go into. One parent went as far as writing a story each day that was with the elf and he would revealed what he did while the child was at school.
 
LadyDeac03 said:
Absolutely.

"He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you're awake."

:eek:hnoes:
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He knows when you have masturbated.

santa-claus.jpg
 
WakeGal said:
That is exactly why the children I interfaced with loved the Shelf Elf. They really didn't care if the elf was watching the or not. What they loved was searching for the elf and seeing what funny things he go into. One parent went as far as writing a story each day that was with the elf and he would revealed what he did while the child was at school.
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What good is a stalker elf if he can't spy on you at school too? Are you telling me that recess is a free-for-all and Santa will never know?!?!
 
iodeac said:
I think it's called Elf on the Shelf, and it's definitely creepy. I was talking to some of my running buddies about it the other day. Just something about some creepy elf sitting around watching your every move and reporting stuff to Santa, it would freak me out as a kid.
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My nieces get so excited each morning to see where their elf Tristan has managed to hide himself overnight. Best place last year was when he appeared sitting in the antlers of the deer head (named Oscar) on the wall in their den.
 
DiegoTiger said:
Yeah whoever pulls the shelf elf crap really needs to consider the psyche of a kid. When I was still little enough to believe in Santa, I threw a dirt clod at a car, then spent 3 months in absolute anguish thinking Santa wasn't going to bring me any presents.
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We have an elf, but we don't talk about the naughty v. nice part of Santa at all and don't really stress Santa much anyway. The elf is just a fun holiday game for the kids - to see who can find him first and my wife and I have fun being creative with him (since you have to re-position him over 25 times).

My favorite was when we put him next to the flour jar and had him making a snow angel out in flour
 
Elf on the Shelf is a great idea. My two year old boys love looking for him every morning when they wake up. My wife recently wrote a letter to the boys from the elf asking one to stop biting and pinching his brother and asking the other to shit in the toilet instead of his underwear (she used more appropriate verbage). The letter also asked our 2 month old to sleep longer at night. Its been 3 days and I can happily report that biting and pinching is down by as much as shitting in the toilet is up at our household. Unfortunately nighttime awakenings are static. Merry Christmas!
 
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We started the Elf on a Shelf with my 3 year old daughter this year, and it has been a big hit. I don't know how much it affects her behavior overall (she's pretty damn stubborn, like her mother). The main difference is that now, instead of apologizing to us when she messes up, she'll run to whatever room the Elf is in and apologize to it instead.

Back to the main topic--when I was a kid, we did family presents on Christmas Eve. Candlelight service at church at dusk, home for dinner, and presents after everything was cleaned up. This was where you got the boring presents out of the way. If you were getting socks or a new belt, this was when it was happening (there were some semi-fun things, but nothing crazy). All of this stuff was, of course, wrapped.

On Christmas morning, the rule was that we couldn't go and get mom and dad up until it was light outside. I was always the first one up, so I would wake up my younger brother first and we would then wake up the parents. Dad would then go to get the lights turned on (and the coffee started). More importantly, he checked to see if Santa had come. Going into the room beforehand was strictly forbidden--it would not have been wise to cross my mom on that point. Once Dad came back and gave the OK, we would rush down to see what Santa left in all of its UNWRAPPED glory. Seperate piles for each of us, located in the same spot every year.

With my daughter, I have to be the one to wake her up. The main difference at this point is that we don't unwrap presents at home on Christmas Eve--we do that at my wife's family's house after church.

I'm totally in the Unwrapped Crowd (which, of course is different from the "Unwiped" Crowd).
 
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