When do your kids wake up on Christmas morning?

[alisonbestford]

I've got 3 kids - 22, 19 and 8

All three of them have needed waking up Christmas morning (at around 9.30)over the years which, I guess, is quite lucky as I seem to find it virtually impossible to find my way to bed until around 3am Christmas Day.....

 

[Caleb's Mom]

Santa magically comes to our house on Christmas Eve while we are gone to the Christmas Eve service at church. When we come home from church we opened the gifts and my DS (5) stayed up very late playing with them which allowed us a very quiet, sleep-in Christmas morning! Yea!
We just tell him that with all of the houses in the world that Santa has to go to on Christmas Eve someone's house has to get an earlier gift drop off or he wouldn't get to all the kiddies around the world in one night! Santa has to start at someones house - we just let him know it's ours!

 

[GottaGetToDisney!]

I can remember being up at 3 or 4am when I was a kid and now I feel like I owe my parents a huge apology!

Luckily, my kids are always so worn out from the Christmas Eve festivities that they sleep in on Christmas morning. This year I woke up and looked at my clock..9:15? The kids aren't up yet??? I had to go wake them up and say "Hey, aren't you guys excited to see what Santa brought you?"

As an aside: my hubby thinks that DD10 is too old to believe in Santa! I think not! I was about 12 when I stopped believing and he claims that he was 8.

Gotta Get To Disney!

 

[MinMouse]

Santa magically comes to our house on Christmas Eve while we are gone to the Christmas Eve service at church. When we come home from church we opened the gifts and my DS (5) stayed up very late playing with them which allowed us a very quiet, sleep-in Christmas morning! Yea!
We just tell him that with all of the houses in the world that Santa has to go to on Christmas Eve someone's house has to get an earlier gift drop off or he wouldn't get to all the kiddies around the world in one night! Santa has to start at someones house - we just let him know it's ours!

I love this idea! I don't think it would fly here. My DD12 (a true Santa beliver I might add) watches Santa trek across the world on the NORAD site. But I would love to do it to get a little extra sleep.

We usually set 7 a.m. as our rising time (one year I even set the kids clocks back an hour so it was really 8a.m. ). I don't like to have to get up early but the rules at our house are clear--- Mom & Dad go downstairs first, then DDs can come! We enjoy watching the kids open their presents, my parents come at some point around 8:30 or so and we have breakfast together. We open one present at a time too so we usually have to finish up some adult presents after breakfast. We usually rest after my parents leave around noon. BTW I still believe in Santa and I'm 38!

 

[fan_of_small_world]

...(one year I even set the kids clocks back an hour so it was really 8a.m. )...

I have SO done this too (but not for Christmas...we did it for New Year's last year so DS thought he stayed up until midnight...we changed every clock in the house!)!!! He got such a kick out of being up "so late!"

Glad to see I'm not the only sneaky parent out there!

 

[mlraabe]

Ha! We thought we were the only sneaky parents who change the clocks on new years eve! We used to do it every year with DS11 and DD8. Now we pretty much let everyone stay up because we want to sleep in the next day ! Besides, since we do not go anywhere for NYE ( we don't trust everyone else out on the roads) we now invite our friends for an informal party (games, movies, snacks) at our house. I would never get my 2 youngest to sleep through all of that!

Back to Christmas morning: DS 11 was up around 6:30 but he knows we do not get up before 7. So he waited in his room. Then came to ours and we had him wake the other 3. Everyone must wait upstairs until dad goes down to make sure Santa is out of the house and the camcorder is turned on. This is the first year DS 11 does not believe (sniff!) We were downstairs by around 7:20. Then we let the kids open the Santa gifts all at once. They stop to look at everyone's things and then keep going. This year there were not many presents but the few were expensive! Then Dh and I open our gifts and the kids open their family gifts. They would never think of opening the presents without all of us in the living room.

We, also, prepare everything in advance so on Christmas Eve, after the kids are in bed, we just have to get each kid's bag of presents out and the stocking bags and put them in their place! It works well and then we can enjoy some wine and the tree looking great with presents underneath and a little peace before the chaos of the morning begins. We are still in bed around 10:30.

I do not like to get up early and DH is even worse but this day it is worth it to drag myself out of bed and downstairs. Plus, I do get almost as excited as the kids to get to the living room!