> > > 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...

Don "The Monkey'Our tradiation is just barely diffferent enough to make me cross my "It's worth posting about" threshold'man" Jackson