When to open presents - Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Much depends on your heritage or how things were when you were a child. It's a hard decision to compromise when two spouses disagree - you can't really choose 3 am which is in the middle.

When I was growing up, all of my grandparents being from Sweden, we celebrated on Christmas Eve. My grandfather would take me shopping on Christmas Eve Day - probably as much to get me out of the house as anything. All the presents were locked in a big closet under the stairs, so we never had a chance to peek. The whole extended family would have a smorgasbord dinner, some of which had been in preparation for weeks. After that, we'd all go into the living room by the tree, and then we'd hear the bells and see Santa Claus coming up the driveway. He'd arrive with a big bag of presents and pass them out, and then he'd leave before we opened them.  I'm told of one particular Christmas Eve when I whispered into Santa's ear as he was leaving, "Good job, Uncle Vin. Hurry back so you can open presents with Jon (my younger cousin and his son)"  Presents were opened, I think we then went to a midnight church service, and home to bed. Christmas morning was the time to get up and play with our presents and eat Christmas cookies.

My husband's family was from England originally, and he'd always celebrated and opened Christmas presents on Christmas morning.

So - who won?  This was long after my grandparents had died, by the way.  He did.  I even gave up on the smorgasbord because noone else in the family liked the Swedish dishes, other than meatballs and cookies.

But we made our own traditions. We hid stockings (even remember Christmases by where a particular stocking was hidden) and they all had to be found before we could open presents - and then we did them one by one, so everyone could watch. Coffee and eggnog, lots of cookies. By the time we finished it was mid-afternoon, so I guess there never would have been time to do it Christmas Eve.

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.