"If you grew up having Santa be part of your Christmas tradition, your parents probably did things the same way each year. For my siblings and me, this meant putting out a little glass bottle of Coca-Cola instead of milk on Christmas Eve along with chocolate chip cookies. We also lined up in order of age at the top of the stairs Christmas morning for an obligatory photo before running downstairs, where all of our gifts from Santa sat unwrapped.
Thatâs right; all of our presents were not wrapped. Each Christmas Eve, weâd each pick a chair in our living room and make a sign with our name on it to let Santa know where gifts should go. I thought thatâs how Santa did it for everyone, but I was wrong. There is a bit of a debate over whether gifts from Santa are wrapped or unwrapped.
Thatâs not the only decision youâll need to make if youâre playing Santa this year. Here are two top decisions youâll need to make, plus a handful of helpful tips for creating some Santa magic.
Santa gifts wrapped or unwrapped?
My husband and I grew up with unwrapped Santa gifts, so we do the same for our kids. But if your partner grew up in a house that did something different, youâll have to figure out if youâre team Santa wraps gifts or team Santa doesnât wrap gifts.
Team unwrapped gifts from Santa
For me, itâs a no-brainer not to wrap. My mental load around the holidays is heavy enough, so not wrapping Santa gifts takes a significant amount of work off my plate. My husband and I also think itâs fun to set up Santa gifts so our kids can play with them right away. Itâs a fun activity for the two of us to do together on Christmas Eve after our girls have gone to bed.
âSanta doesnât have that much time or energy to wrap,â says mom Heather B. of why all of her kidsâ gifts remain unwrapped, while Reddit user raiu86 adds that gifts from Santa have to be unwrapped so that Santa knows what gifts go to what house. âWrapped gifts for millions of kids would be a logistical challenge; how many Timmy Smiths are there in the US?â
Another mom shared with me, âSanta does not wrap. Santaâs toys are built in a workshop, so they are delivered put together with no evidence of coming from a store.â
Team wrapped gifts from Santa
Proponents of wrapping gifts, though, like mom Kayla P., say that âunwrapping is half the funâ and âhaving it all unwrapped makes it less exciting because you just immediately see everything at once.â
A co-worker also told me she assumes Santaâs gifts should always be wrapped because, in Christmas movies like Home Alone, they always are. Other parents say that wrapping all the gifts is a fun tradition for them to do.
Tips for wrapped gifts from Santa
If you plan to wrap Santaâs gifts, consider which wrapping paper to use and how to distinguish the gifts for each child if you have multiple kids. In Senior Editor Kathy Sissonâs house, Santa uses different wrapping paper for each child and either puts a personalized Christmas ornament or leaves one gift unwrapped to make it obvious whose gifts are whose.
If you use a special roll of wrapping paper for Santa presents, youâll need to make sure you hide it well and that you donât use it the following year for non-Santa gifts. If you address the presents, you may also want to disguise your handwriting or print gift tags to prevent your kids from wondering why Santaâs handwriting matches yours exactly.
âOurs were always wrapped in solid red wrap,â says hamgurglerr on Reddit. âThat said, my mom flew a bit too close to the sun one year and asked me to do her wrapping and I found the roll of red wrap. Thatâs how I learned that Santa wasnât real.â
One compromise some parents have settled on is putting presents in âSantaâs sack.â Santa gifts are still unwrapped, but kids get the excitement of only seeing one gift at a time.
How many gifts does Santa bring?
Another thing youâll need to decide is how many presents Santa brings versus how many presents come from you as the parent. Growing up, I got the majority of my gifts from Santa, but my husband and I want to do some things with Santa differently for our girls. So weâre thinking through a few potential strategies.
Some parents say they follow the âsomething they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to readâ tradition to decide what gifts Santa brings kids. This allows for a mix of practical gifts as well as something fun but reins the amount of gifts in. One mom went viral earlier this year for her take on this Christmas shopping strategy, slightly expanding the categories to include things like something to do and something to share.
Another option could be to only have Santa bring just one or two things. âWhy should Santa get all the credit?â stresses Loud-Satisfaction43 on Reddit. Which is true; Iâve worked hard to be able to provide Christmas gifts for my girls, and being able to have them acknowledge the effort would be great.
Youâll want to decide what your strategy is early on, as it might be confusing to kids why Santa brings a lot of presents one year and only one the next.
Tips for being a successful Santa
1. Archive your online orders and mind your texts
Archive your Amazon and other online orders, and be mindful of what gift ideas youâre texting. My husband and I are planning on getting our girls a Power Wheels car for Christmas (shhh!) and were texting each other different options. My 2-year-old saw the texts as she was trying to look at pictures on my phone and excitedly commented about the Minnie Mouse car she saw.
Luckily, sheâs young enough that she wonât be able to put two and two together. But an older kid might accidentally access your Amazon orders if your iCloud connects to their iPad and figure out that itâs not Santa doing the shopping. Archive your Amazon orders or use incognito mode when browsing so that itâs harder for little ones to see what might be coming their way.
2. Monitor front door deliveries
Consider picking gifts up in person or shipping them to a different address if you canât always monitor your front door. The Everymom CEO, Alaina Kaz, found this out the hard way when a LEGO set sheâd ordered for her boys for Christmas showed up on her front porch in LEGO packaging, and they saw them, ruining the present. The same thing happened to meâI ordered new Magna-Tiles during Prime Day for Christmas, and they came in branded packaging.
So Iâll ship the aforementioned Power Wheels car to a neighbor down the street in case it is sent in original packaging. Ship to a different address or use store in-person pickup, like Targetâs click and collect program, to take the worry out of how something might show up at your house.
3. Take stock of what needs batteries and what will need assembly
Most kids will want to play with new toys immediately, so the worst thing that can happen is if a toy needs batteries and you donât have the right kind on hand. If youâre wrapping gifts, make a list of how many batteries and types that youâll need while you go and make sure you stock up on what you need ahead of Christmas Day. If youâre not wrapping Santa gifts, go ahead and put the batteries in any toy that needs them so that theyâll be ready to go.
The same concept applies to things that need assembly. If your child is getting a play kitchen for Christmas, chances are theyâll want it set up ASAP, so build it on Christmas Eve or have a plan for when theyâll be able to play with it.
4. Prep your kids for potential disappointment
Kids are very capable of dreaming bigger than your budget, as one mom recently illustrated in a viral TikTok video describing her sonsâ wish lists. Most parents are not going to be able to give their children everything on their list, so take some time to prep your kids for that to help with disappointment on Christmas Day.
My mom would always tell me that sometimes Santa has something on his list for me that I may have not ever thought of. Now I know this was her way of prepping me that sheâd purchased something for me that I hadnât asked for. Knowing that Santa had a true surprise for me was something that made me excited, though.
You can also incorporate chats about gratitude and how to express thanks for gifts that Santa (or others) worked hard to deliver to bring the attention away from the number and types of gifts a bit.
After all your hard Santa work, donât forget the best partâthe Christmas cookies! Kids will absolutely check to see if Santa ate his snack, so be sure to take a few bites (or to eat them all) and to take a few sips of milk. Youâll get bonus points for writing a cute thank you letter to your kids for the cookies. Writing in block letters can help disguise your handwriting.
Santa is a fun tradition for some families, and there are lots of ways to approach it as a parent. Whether you leave your gifts from Santa unwrapped or wrapped and whether you bring lots of presents from Santa or just a few are decisions that will shape your familyâs holiday tradition, but remember at the end of the day that thereâs no wrong way to be Santa.
Elliott Harrell, Contributing Writer
Elliott is a mom of two little girls and is based in Raleigh, NC. She spends her days running a sales team and doing laundry and her nights writing about the things that she loves. Sheâs passionate about all things motherhood and womenâs health. When sheâs not working, writing or parenting you can find her trying a new restaurant in town or working on her latest needlepoint project.