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We used to have a 4 stage Christmas.
Stage one was Christmas Eve at my aunts with my mother's side of the
family. After it reached the point that there were more than about 5 or
6 kids in my generation, we stopped giving everyone presents, and all
the cousins would draw names from a hat, and get one gift. My
grandmother always had a small gift for every child. Some of the aunts
would also give a small gift (especially as we got older).
Stage two was Christmas morning before breakfast. We opened our
stockings and all the little presents from "Santa".
Then came breakfast.
Stage three was opening the presents under the tree.
Stage four was Christmas afternoon when we would get together with my
father's side of the family (much smaller, my father's brother has never
had kids).
Sadly we didn't get a lot of LEGO sets for Christmas.
Recently, we had to instruct my sister's husband on how to open
presents. His family would hand out one present at a time, not one to
each person at a time, ONE at a time. Everyone would wait while the
person carefully opened their present, before the next present was
handed out. Had we operated that way in our family, we wouldn't have
finished by nightfall (or morning if that was how we operated Christmas
Eve with Grammy, her 4 daughters and 4 husbands, 16 grandchildren,
various SOs, and before the tradition faded, at least 5 or 6 great
grandchildren).
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: This dropped out of the papers this weekend...
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| (...) Your extended family Christmases sound very much like mine, as far as who gives presents to whom, and who gets together, and all. When I was a kid, my dad's side of the family (from my grandparents on down) would get together on the Sunday (...) (25 years ago, 9-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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