Adam@Home by Rob Harrell for December 25, 2022

I knew it from panel #1 that that meditative state hides an ugly truth

She did resist doing anything with her gifts , at least. Hope everyone has a good Christmas.

My cousins (with whom I stayed while going to college) had 4 kids … and a great Christmas morning strategy. They would pack the kids’ stockings with all kinds of small but entertaining presents, and a few (semi-) healthy treats. the rule was, they could get their stockings as soon as they woke up, but then had to take them back to their beds and play quietly with their stocking toys until we grown-ups finally got (moan, groan) up. (Which was not easy after attending and performing in the midnight Christmas Eve service, taking the babysitter home, then getting all the “Santa” presents out of hiding and filling the stockings. We were lucky if we got to bed before 2AM!

In our house Santa’s presents (when the kids were young) and your stocking are fair game no matter when you get up. The wrapped presents under the tree are off limits until everyone is up (to make sure we wrote down who got what from whom for thank you notes).

What ever holiday tradition you celebrate may it be full of joy and peace.

Our family tradition was to open gifts on Christmas Eve

Not sure how old the tradition is

I’m the youngest of 3 boys and our parents might have just wanted to avoid the Christmas morning madness

Adam and Laura want pictures/video so Katy’s going to have to re-wrap all her gifts, unwrap them, and pretend to be surprised. That’ll teach her.

Merry Christmas!

My parents had a couple of firm rules: it wasn’t Christmas Day until the sun was up. And the whole family had to go into the living room together.

Enjoying the afterglow of satisfaction is just a valid as enjoying the feeling of expectation.

Remember, she did ask you to bind her to remove the temptation.

There’s one in every family…..

this was essentially me as a kid. i was very hyperactive and couldn’t sleep on christmas eve so my parents very kindly gave me permission to go – in the middle of the night – look at everything in my stocking which i would do, put everything carefully back, and then happily go to sleep.

A very selfish little girl?

She looks surprisingly happy for still not having gotten that pony.

My smart daughter and her husband made a brilliant rule! They have 6 kids… the one who gets to the Christmas tree first and opens a present gets to open the rest of them last. Now they sleep in, or at least allow mom and dad to sleep in!!

Does Adam’s head look weird to anyone else? It seems too long, like there’s a guest artist.

Husband’s family opened their “practical” gifts – clothing and such on Christmas Eve. “Toys” were opened on Christmas Day.

I am Jewish. We would get our “big” present (yes, singular) on whichever night my dad was home when we would do so as he often came home late night from work. Other than that we got a small (tiny) present every night for the other 7 nights of Chanukah.

Now the two of us – he opens his gifts on Christmas Day and unless I happen to come across something for me – extremely rare – I watch him open his gifts.