So this is one of my few off topic(cruising) blog posts. But it is Christmas and if there is any time of year I feel that it is OK for me to be off topic it is this week.
Anyone else notice that Santa Claus customizes Christmas for each family. That must take a massive database to be able to know exactly how each family wants their gifts to be left out for the kids. For my family, this customization lead to a lively debate as to how we should have Santa leave the gifts for our kids.
My wife says that my family is strange because my parents requested that Santa take all of our gifts out of the boxes and to have them set up, ready to play. One half of the living room had my toys and my brother’s gifts were on the other side…they were all assembled, batteries in, and ready to go. When we came down the stairs, we could see all of our gifts at once. We would go from one toy to the next with such excitement. Automatically when we would come to the living room we would focus on one toy…I would sprint to that toy and start playing. Then after a few minutes I would get curious and move on to the next toy. After a couple of hours of playing with the toys from Santa, we would then unwrap the gifts from my parents.
My wife’s parents requested that Santa wrap all of the gifts and put them under the tree. The big gifts like bikes were to be left unwrapped. When the kids came down stairs their initial excitement was to look at the all the wrapped presents Santa left under the tree. They would proceed to unwrap all of the gifts which are still in the boxes that the Elves package them in. Those packages were eerily similar to the packaging at Toys R Us. As they opened gifts, her Dad would assemble the toys. The first toy would actually get played with 2 hours into the process.
So when it came to our first Christmas, I think my wife assumed that Santa was like Centex Homes with very little customization. Santa delivered the presents the same way to ever home. And then when I told her how Santa set up all of our gifts so that when we came downstairs we would go from gift to gift playing with all of them. She said we were odd and that Santa was just too lazy to wrap our gifts.
Needless to say due to oddness of my family’s Christmas Traditions, Santa wraps our kids presents. I like how my parents chose to have Santa do our Christmas…as the parent I would rather not have to do the assembly in the morning, it takes away from time in which I could actually be playing with the kids. And once I have the first toy ready to go, then the kids play with that toy while I put Also when I was little Santa did not leave behind any boxes…the toys feel bought when Santa leaves them in the boxes.
So I am now curious…was my family odd? Did Santa wrap your gifts or did he set them up for you? Or does Santa offer other options for Customization that I am unaware?
