We can't wait, and dont want to!!!!

I have a secret to tell you....
We open presents before Christmas. No, not just the one Christmas eve with Pajamas in them. Many and in fact most of our presents are opened before Christmas.
It all started A couple of years ago when Joe had work off for two weeks for the holidays because he worked for the school district.

Well one day, 3 days before the big day, we were hanging out and Joe said, out of the blue that we should open a present. He had one that he wanted me to open before Christmas. I wasn't gonna say no. Ive never been allowed to open presents before the big day so I agreed, aka jumped for joy and kissed my man. So I opened up the gift, it was a cool light decoration thing for our house. It was fun, we went out and put it up and had so much fun.

Then Joe said that since I opened one he should get one too. So he opened another one and then we played with that for hours until we were bored. Then we, of course, had to let our two kids in on the fun and they opened one too. We put together and played with those toys too. By then it was way past bed time and we were hooked.

So the next day we started again, opening presents before Christmas. It was so cool. Instead of the whole thing where you open one gift after another without any play, we did just the opposite and used or played with what ever we just opened. Then after some time one more gift was opened. It was the best, we actually enjoyed each and every gift together as a family. By the time Christmas Eve arrived, there was not one single present under the tree.

Now don't you go worrying, see you forgot about Santa, he of course came in the night and the next day there were more gifts. It was super cool for the kids to see our tree go from nothing, when they went to bed, to more that Santa brought.

So that is how it all started and we are still doing it to this day. This year we started seven days before Christmas and are opening between 1-3 presents a day. It is a smaller Christmas this year due to the economy so we have to make it last. Still, it is so so much fun. The kids are really enjoying fully the gifts they are getting and we all are having such a great time. Plus we are snowed in and we need to do something besides cook and eat.

We had some friends come by to sled two days ago and my kids told him how they get to open presents before Christmas. He came up to me very concerned and asked me why we do that. I told him "because we are Awesome parents." I mean seriously what kid (or in my husbands case grown up) does not really want to open his presents early. So that makes us pretty dang AWESOME!!! Also Joe just gets so excited to give me his presents that he really can not wait, I think it is a sickness of his. But I of course understand his need to shower his lovely wife with gifts and will continue to let him do it as he sees fit.

So there you have it. Our Little secret. It is out and It is really super cool. Try it, You'll see.

You know what else is cool about doing it our way. Our kids look so great in the Christmas pictures, and are dressed in many different outfits because we open for days on end. It is not just the regular old pajamas and messy hair pictures of Christmases gone by.