To Wrap or Not To Wrap
During one of our morning meetings, an unexpected yet very lively holiday discussion came up: does Santa leave wrapped gifts behind, or are they all unwrapped? And who knew we’d all have our own strong feelings about it?! Personally, I love wrapping a lot of the Santa gifts (with ‘special’ paper that has yet to be seen, of course) because I enjoy seeing my daughter’s face when she opens each one. My husband, however, has always held the tradition that gifts from Santa were left unwrapped and on display in and around the stockings—to create that ‘WOW’ factor.
So having experienced the debate at home (we finally decided the smaller Santa gifts would be unwrapped and the bigger ones would be wrapped), I was pleasantly surprised to find that it seems my fellow SavvyHQ colleagues were not unfamiliar with these varying options. So as our blog theme this holiday season has become about anecdotes from SavvyHQ, we posed the questions: Are all the gifts from Santa, or are some from Mom and Dad—and do you wrap Santa’s gifts, or leave them unwrapped? Here’s what everyone else had to say:
“The gifts are always a mix. Some from Santa Claus and some from us. And I wrap everything.” Maggie, National Sales Director
“All gifts are from Santa (none from mom and dad to the kids) and all are wrapped. It’s what I remember as a little girl and so the tradition continues.” – Angela, Director of Business Development
“Growing up, Santa did not wrap presents at my parent’s house. To this day, he still displays our gifts very nicely in living room chairs so that we have a ‘wow!’ reaction when we first see all of our gifts. He also didn’t wrap our stockings. Now that I’m a mom, Santa wraps the girls’ presents, but I think in a few years I will probably adopt the same no-wrapping policy.” – Leslie, Sales Coordinator & Project Manager
“Following in my husband’s family tradition, our gifts are all wrapped and all marked from Santa. However, this year I plan to present the ‘big’ gift as coming from us as an effort to get some sense of gratitude from my kids. They keep telling me that their friends get gifts from Santa AND from their parents! Stocking and gifts are all left under the tree and ALL opened one after the other as soon as one of the kids wakes up (usually my son).” – Sarah, Publisher & Co-Founder
“When my kids believed in Santa, I used to wrap the presents, making sure to use different wrapping paper for gifts from Santa than the ones from me. They both open stockings at the same time, otherwise they take turns to open their gifts, which we do first thing Christmas morning.” – Holly, Production Manager/EatSavvy Photographer
“Most Christmas mornings, the kids are awake first. We all head downstairs in our PJs, make coffee, turn on the Christmas music, ooh and ahhh over the gifts that have been left by Santa (unwrapped), take down our stockings from the stocking holders on the fireplace and unpack them (unwrapped). In our family, stockings are almost as much fun and important for the kids and adults as the gifts. Opening gifts comes next. Just before lunch, we pack up the car and drive north to Huntsville, Ontario to enjoy a traditional Christmas celebration with my family—tobogganing, gift exchange, turkey dinner and holiday baking!” – Denise, Director of Client Services
“Santa gifts are not wrapped. We get up early to look through stockings—all the Santa stuff—then we have breakfast, go to church and then we open the other family gifts—one at a time.” Minnow, Editor & Co-Founder
How do you handle the Santa gifts on Christmas morning?
