When you go to Disney for Christmas..

[THESCHULTZFIVE]

What do you do about presents. Last night we were watching the Disney holiday show on the food network and my DD9 said she'd like to go for Christmas one year. Then she asked "Does that mean we won't get prssents?". I was just wondering what those of you who go at that time do. I sure don't want presents with us (as if we don't have enough luggage with just clothes and shoes). Do you have "a real Christmas" when you get back or before you leave, or what?

 

[mickeymousefan]

I was wondering the same thing. Were would you store the gifts?
Last year we were at ASMo the week before Christmas and we saw people decorating their hotel rooms with trees, lights in the windows etc. That was a great idea!!

 

[CarolinaBlue]

We are spending our first Christmas at Disney this year. I plan to take a couple of presents (pj's, hoodies) with us. We are going to decorate our room with a Pooh and friends Christmas tree and some window clings. Santa is going to leave our presents at home so we will get them when we get back (the day after Christmas). We have never spent Christmas away from home and family, so I hope that it will be a good experience.

 

[kllndjsn]

This will be our first Christmas there, but we are planning to take lights for the window, a tree, winidow clings and stockings that I am going to have the kids make in the next couple days for the room.

But as for presents and Santa, I have told my kids that Santa won't forget them. We have a few presents for them at home that I will put out when we are leaving (when the kids are out of the house for good). Then at Disney we will have some presents under the tree also (things that we'll get there).

Haven't decided whether we'll tell the kids they are from us and Santa left their stuff at home, or (and more likely) we'll tell them that Santa left some of their stuff there and some at our house.

HTH!

 

[tlbwriter]

I haven't been there *on* Christmas - last year we left on the 24th, and this year we're leaving on the 23rd. But we explained to DD (6) that her Christmas presents from mom and dad would be bought at WDW (rolling Christmas and souvenirs into one actually saved us some $$$!). If I were going to be there on Christmas Day, no way would I lug presents with me! I'd celebrate when we got home.

 

[THESCHULTZFIVE]

Thanks all for the tips. I too would love to go at Christmas time. Maybe 2008 since 2007 I'm determined to go at Halloween again. I hope all that are going this year have a truly magical Christmas.

 

[NMAmy]

We were at WDW for 2 weeks at Christmas last year. I just packed a couple of rolls of wrapping paper, tape, and scissors in my luggage along with the gifts and wrapped them when we got there. DD was 14 so most of her gifts tended to be small (cd's, etc.) I also bought her a bunch of stuff when we were there and wrapped it up as well. I always pack an extra suitcase inside a suitcase anyway.

We had a great Christmas morning and went to Chef Mickey's for breakfast.

 

[KeepSwimming]

One of my closest friends celebrates every other Christmas at Disney. They always bring 2 or 3 SMALL presents for each child to open on Christmas morning and the rest are opened when they get home (they call it Christmas morning the sequel). The kids (ages 4, 7, 9) all consider Disney to be their BIG present and don't mind waiting for the other gifts.

I think it wouldn't be a big deal as long as you discuss it with the kids (Santa wil probably leave most of your presents at our house because he knows he can't fit it all in our hotel room....what a big surprise we'll have waiting for us when we get home).

 

[WAHMto5]

We are going this year and since we are driving, we are bringing a small tree, the stockings and our gifts so we can have our Christmas on Christmas day and then go to the parks!!

 

[brandip22]

I have been wondering the same thing. We have been thinking of doing Christmas at Disney next year so thanks for the tips!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

We leave in 9 days for a 2 week trip including xmas day. I am shipping a small tree, decorations and presents down ahead of time. You just need the address for the resort, your name, reservation number, and date of arrival. I'm leaving a little space in the suitcase for clothing gifts like hoodies but I will just ship everything else back in the same box. I don't like to check gifts in luggage because 1) you can't wrap them and 2) things tend to disappear.
Santa will be delivering gifts to our hotel this year. One thing that is to our advantage is we are staying at POR and they have a little bench in the room and it doesn't have a bottom. The gifts will go under there and a suitcase sits on top so the kids won't even know they are there. Dh will take them out of the room and I will "forget" something to go back and stash stuff.
I haven't asked the resort but I wonder if you could just check a bag with wrapped gifts in it at luggage valet and just pick it up on xmas eve. Santa doesn't usually wrap his gifts for us but I think I will ask him to this year in santa paper.

P.S. If anyone sees a crazy lady wrapping last minute items in the laundry room on xmas eve, please stop in and say hi. I could always use an extra hand tying ribbons!

 

[THESCHULTZFIVE]

We leave in 9 days for a 2 week trip including xmas day. I am shipping a small tree, decorations and presents down ahead of time. You just need the address for the resort, your name, reservation number, and date of arrival. I'm leaving a little space in the suitcase for clothing gifts like hoodies but I will just ship everything else back in the same box. I don't like to check gifts in luggage because 1) you can't wrap them and 2) things tend to disappear.
Santa will be delivering gifts to our hotel this year. One thing that is to our advantage is we are staying at POR and they have a little bench in the room and it doesn't have a bottom. The gifts will go under there and a suitcase sits on top so the kids won't even know they are there. Dh will take them out of the room and I will "forget" something to go back and stash stuff.
I haven't asked the resort but I wonder if you could just check a bag with wrapped gifts in it at luggage valet and just pick it up on xmas eve. Santa doesn't usually wrap his gifts for us but I think I will ask him to this year in santa paper.

P.S. If anyone sees a crazy lady wrapping last minute items in the laundry room on xmas eve, please stop in and say hi. I could always use an extra hand tying ribbons!

Shipping the stuff is a great idea!!1 I love the idea of bringing a little tree too. Ok, It's settled now Christmas 2007. We had soooo much luggage that was all filled to capacity(in fact on our trip home in October we had to buy an extra piece of luggage and when we got to the airport one of our bags was too heavy and we had to re-arrange a bunch of stuff) I just couldn't imagine anything else. Maybe we'll let the kids bring stockings and everything else will be home waiting for us. Of course, this is all fantasy for us because DH works for UPS and there's NO WAY they're letting him go on vacation at Christmas time.

 

[ksjayhawkfan]

We are planning on Christmas next year at Disney and that will be the present. We asked our kids what they wanted and thats what they chose. We may have a couple very small gifts for them but thats it.

 

[CarolinaBlue]

P.S. If anyone sees a crazy lady wrapping last minute items in the laundry room on xmas eve, please stop in and say hi. I could always use an extra hand tying ribbons!

I'll be next door at POFQ. If I wander over to POR on Christmas Eve, I'll be sure to check the laundry room!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

I'll be next door at POFQ. If I wander over to POR on Christmas Eve, I'll be sure to check the laundry room!

The more the merrier! I even have Disney holiday wrapping paper.

 

[p2oh]

We were there for christmas last year and I tok pictures of all the presents and put them in gift bags or wrapped them once I got there and and gave them to my DH (we don't have kids yet, but he is a bigger baby than any child I could ever have) That way he got his "presents" on Christmas morning and I didn't have to worry about extra luggage.

 

[sanddune]

We ask Santa very nicely to bring our presants early. Then he can bring our stockings to Disney on Christmas Eve.

 

[dgaston]

The Disney trip is the big present. There are some other small things I will bring, Christmas regulars like matching pj bottoms for males, a few candy treats, and matching Disney sweatshirts I got from the Disney store on sale. These things will be in the "extra" suitcase that souvenirs go in on the way home. I've told everyone to pack light -- we'll do laundry there.

 

[Goofy DS]

We will open 1 gift before we go. That is how we are springing the "surprise" on the kids!

The trip is the big gift this year, and DS 10 and DD 14 each had a (inexpensive) digital camera on their wish list this year, so we got the cameras so they could use them on the trip. The gift will also have some Disney stuff and t-shirts that we had made that say

SURPRISE
CHRISTMAS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD
2005

Then it's "You better go pack we're leaving in a few hours!"

When we get back they'll still have the gifts from grandparents etc... to open.

We are also shipping a small table top tree and window clings and some other items to the hotel so they'll be there when we arrive. We get in late on 12/21 so no parks etc... on that day. We'll unpack and decorate the room before we go to bed that night.

 

[CheshireVal]

We are all adults, so we scale back on the presents (Disney is the big present, really!) and bring them all with us. We drive, so it helps. We open presents after dinner on Christmas Eve so that we can get up early on Christmas Day and beat the crowds to the parks.

I was worried last year about breaking all our old "Christmas at home" traditions, but it was actually very nice, and we're doing it again this year!