Do you put your gifts under the tree before Christmas?

[jlder72]

All the presents go under the tree. The "big" "santa" present is put out Christmas eve after she is asleep 12 year old daughter

 

[suejai]

We do the same thing that both my husband and I did growing up:

Gifts from everyone except Santa are wrapped and under the tree as soon as they arrive, or are bought (or when the tree goes up for the many things I buy throughout the year). I LOVE the look of those under the tree and enjoy seeing it through the month.

On Christmas Eve we hand out the stacks of gifts and open them up around the tree after dinner (and church if we live near one we go to). We enjoy "having our tree" (as my southern aunts say) at night with the lights on it sparkling. After everything is opened up the kids make a big display of it on dining table and then set out cookies for Santa.

Christmas morning the kids come down to their (one big each--or once in a while a set of a few small items that go together) gifts from Santa set up under (or in front of in the case of many bigger gifts) the tree. Everything is all assembled and put together and set up like a store display (meaning I have spent hours putting together playmobil houses , putting all the people and furnishing in them, adding "magazines" and fake snow around the outside and whatever else to make it look extra special--or whatever the equivelant would be for the year). Stockings will have also been filled with a variety if (unwrapped) gifts. The awe value of the big gift tends to keep the stockings from being thought about for an hour or so though.

We really like how this spreads out the gifts into a longer period of time with more chance to appreciate one thing before moving onto the next--and the kids always love the displays--so the things really look like all those ads make them seem

This is how we do it as well

 

[NHdisneylover]

Ohhhhh, my husband has always been the absolute MASTER at figuring out gifts!!!

DS will never even be given the chance!!!

And, yes, I still think the whole 'display' and 'look but don't touch' thing is just odd....

That's fine--you can think we're odd. We think it is odd to treat Santa like any other gift and have to just wrapped--for us that takes away part of the specialness and magic that is Santa.
I don't think I EVER told the kids "look but don't touch" and certainly gifts get moved (by them) to rearrange and make everything fit better as new things come in--but they don't go sneaking around the house looking for unwrapped gifts, trying to decipher what is in the box, etc. They just don't like it. I am really not sure why it is so odd to prefer being surprised
Actually, my crafty daughter will tell you her favoutire parts of Christmas are making gifts followed by wrapping them. She does a beautiful job--custom making paper boxes ad using origami, incredible bows, hand made tags, incorporating things like pine cones or little branches when it work, etc. Seriously her stuff looks like it came straight out of Martha Stewart. She has been doing that for about 5 years now and I cannot imagine tucking all her beautiful work away and setting it out only just in time to be admired for 20 minutes or so before we tear into it.
So anyway, we are perfectly happy in our "oddness."

 

[NHdisneylover]

This is how we do it as well

Fun to be the "odd" ones isn't it

Funny thing is I ended up married to someone who grew you doing the same thing (his family is from Iowa and mine is from Texas so it is not just a regional thing).

 

[Genie 410]

We always put a few under the tree before X-mas - the tree just looks so bare without them!

We always put more under the tree on Xmas eve to make sure we have some ready for X-mas morning.