When does my familly open their presents?

I grew up on a ranch and so in the winter time, as also in the summer time. Ranch work comes first. It can be a disapointing to a kid when it comes to opening presents Christmas time.

My grandma lived in the house next to us, so sometimes on Christmas Eve we would go to her house so she could open her presents. It was always fun watching her open her presents. We would then go back to our house to hang our stockings and put out the milk and cookies for Santa.

My brother and I would always awake before dawn, even before our parents who are very early risers. We would go look at the presents and the stockings. We would then go back to my room and wait for everybody else to get up.

When our parents woke up we would be able to open our stockings and one present. The rest of the presents would have to wait until after the cows and calves were fed. I remember when my parents fed with horses. That meant it would be close to lunch time before we were able to open presents. Even with the use of 4-wheelers and tractors and other vehicles it still took a long time to feed. Sometimes we didn't have to wait very long at all. The time can be anywhere between 9:00 and 2:00 when we could open our presents.

We always had our turkey meal for the lunch hour. We had turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, shrimp dip, cranberry sauce and some type of vegetable. It was a good meal. We could always have different family friends here too for the meal. Of course it depended on the weather.

The afternoon was always about playing with what we received. It was always lots of fun taking the gifts to our rooms to examine them and decide which one to play with first. As we got older any books we received, were usually looked at first.

At night my brother and I would give our presents. I thought it was better, because then people would remember what we gave. It was a lot of fun putting the presents at the table before supper. Our supper would turkey sandwiches and the other leftovers. Yummy.

Christmas was always a fun time and it made it even better when we needed to feed the cows first.