> > > > Christmas morning was fun. My wife's family has this thing where everyone takes turns opening gifts rather than everyone diving into a pile and ripping wrapping paper. It's actually a neat tradition, but with ten people, we're done opening presents around New Year's.
> > >
> > > My family has practiced that tradition for as long as I can remember. There were only five of us, though, so we got finished in just three or four hours, usually. Another tradition we had was that everyone got a turn at being "Santa." In other words, everyone got a turn at grabbing gifts out of the pile and handing it to the recipient. For a few years, we even had a Santa hat to go along with the honor, and just a year ago, we even had a fake Santa beard and glasses to go along with it. (Hence the "Grishny Clause" picture that many of you have seen.)
> > >
> > > Gri"Santa's Little Helper"shny
> >
> > We do that too! Both of them! We had, um... 9 people this year, though. It took us till 4:00 to finish. But it was fun!
> >
> > Ki"wasn't Santa this year, at all, though"ki
>
> Our system is similar, but slightly different. We take turns opening the gifts, but whoever just opened a gift always selects the next gift, and it can't be one for themself. Simple, efficient... Of course, we had eight people this year, and it did take us to mid-afternoon...
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> Don "The Monkey'Our tradiation is just barely diffferent enough to make me cross my "It's worth posting about" threshold'man" Jackson

Wow, my family must be speed freaks or something. We also go around the circle and open one present while everyone watches, but for 13 of us, it took about an hour.

gab"Or maybe we skimped on gifts"by