I my experience, kids of that age have about half an hour of good opening-presents-experience in them. So, much of the answer depends upon how many gifts will be exchanged. Grandma and 4 kids exchange might be 6-8 gifts and one at a time oohing and ahhing would work. Nine people all giving and recieving gifts might be 64 gifts (each person giving one gift to each of the 8 others) - one at a time could lead to a couple of meltdowns.

I love the idea of the card table at the dining room table. If you plan to have a table cloth, I've found it better to use two table clothes - even if they match - so you can see where the two tables join. That way you don't put a gravy boat or a glass of wine crossing that meeting spot. It isn't a stable part of the table.

In my family we all sit in a circle in the living room. We have someone designated as "Santa" to pass the gifts out to each person set on the floor in front of them. Then we go around the cirlce and open one gift at a time. This might not work if you have a lot of people or impatient kids, but this is what works best with us.

Merry Christmas and have fun with your family!

We do the exact same thing as naughtykitty only we do it
Christmas Eve. We don't have many so that's why it works so
good for us. The youngest usually plays Santa and that works
cause the youngest is over 21. No children involved yet.

Someone is chosen to hand out gifts and one person opens a gift at a time. When I was married the inlaws would pile everyone's gift by his or her chair and then everyone would open at once, I never did get to see what everyone got really.

How about having the older kids hand out gifts to the younger ones first cause they are going to be soooo excited. Let them open their gifts first for the ohhh's and ahhh's, look what I got Grandma, kisses and hugs all around. Then let the oldest open his/hers and then the parents and you Grandma. I think that way the youngest will be able to enjoy theirs first and be content with what they got and playing with it.

Sal

When I was little, I was one of four kids. We got our stockings on Christmas Eve night and also exchanged gifts between ourselves. They were often home-made gifts or little things we bought at Woolworths. The "big" Santa gifts were opened on Christmas Day, after we all attended church.

All great ideas! What we do, and we have a LARGE family from 2 years old right up to 75 years old! We designate a couple of "santa's" to pass out gifts because there are so many and it cuts down on time. We then let the "little" kids go one at a time so we can see everything that "santa" got them. Then our parents go next at the same time. Then the adults go one "couple" at a time and it goes pretty fast. The kids are happy because they can start playing with thier new toys and we are happy because we can see what everyone gets. It works great for us even though there are alot of people.

We do it all at once. It's utter chaos and I LOVE it!