If you’re like me, you probably have one or two (= about a hundred) things left to do to prepare for Christmas. Here in the Vicarage, we have been reading a few of the Jesse Tree readings at teatime but have so far failed to actually get a suitable twig to hang the decorations from. We’ve been pulling the decorations from their tin as we read. And then popping them back, saying ‘We must get a twig to hang these from’. And failing. Are things a bit upside down in your house too? Maybe you even have a few (all the?) pressies still left to buy. Or you need some encouragement in the final flapping. So, in a spirit of festive helpfulness, I have six paper copies of The Ministry of a Messy House to give away in time for Christmas.
Tell me below the latest you’ve been up wrapping on Christmas Eve in the comment box below and on Sunday evening I’ll draw six names out and post your book out first thing next Monday.
The Vicar's Wife 
Honestly, probably only about 8pm, but with a new 5 week old baby now \i suspect that may change!
After ‘midnight’ sevice at church!
I can often be found wrapping mine while hubby is out doing midnight communion1
I think I’ve always finished on the 23rd – love to keep the 24th free to savour advent, go to outdoors carols and remember all that is special about waiting for Jesus.
But on the 23rd still wrapping – I find that if William Tell is playing on Classic FM that I can wrap at a frenzied rate….
Like you all things internal seems to get left until last, I make the excuse that our friends will understand and Christmas doesn’t begin until 25th of December even wrapping presents for children after midnight mass is over, so up till about 2am in the morning is the latest I have been doing home presents and sometimes forgotten my husbands surprise until a few minutes before I have given it him after Christmas soup lunch on Christmas day when we finally get to sit and let go.
I have been known not only to wrap the presents on Christmas eve between the 6pm and the midnight service, but make the Christmas cake then too!
I remember one year that my hubby was assembling a bike and I was finishing the stitches on a dress and it was easily 1:30am. Hadn’t even wrapped them yet! But we are night owls anyway… 🙂
I seem to remember waking up early to wrap a few final presents before Christmas breakfast. This week I have Christmas events at two prisons, one homeless day centre, a council estate, and in front of the town hall so present shopping can wait till next week.
3am after falling asleep waiting for the kids to settle after the First Eucharist of Christmas lol
The latest I have been wrapping is about midnight about five years ago when the girls were really young and I didn’t get the hang of buying and wrapping things a little earlier in the month. I am still trying to master it now! (However, I am rtather embarrassed that I haven’t bought a copy of your book yet.
I’m usually done a couple of days before Christmas but last year I don’t know what happened and behold – Christmas Eve and no wrapping done. And in the same year my kids changed from small kids who fell asleep when they were put to bed to big, excited kids who couldn’t get to sleep. The perfect storm. It was well after midnight. Not aiming for a repeat performance this year.
I’ve been a ‘during the midnight service’ person while our children were young. The latest I wrapped presents was for visiting family who were not arriving until Boxing Day. I prioritised presents for those there on christmas day, wrapping the later lot christmas afternoon, at the time I’d usually be trimming and folding paper for another year…..
I was still knitting socks for my Nanna at about 9pm on Christmas Eve a few years ago, fortunately they were done and dusted by the morning!
Is it bad that sometimes I’ve left presents unwrapped until the day we see the recipients of the presents friends and that could be after Christmas?! I’m planning on being a bit better this year, but only time will tell. I feel a bit ashamed admitting this though…!
The latest we have been up wrapping is 1:45 am on christmas morning. That is as well as cleaning the house for guests who were coming in a few hours. Would love one of the books.
Does my husband frantically putting batteries in a present with me trying to stall the children upstairs on Christmas morning count?!!
There was the time I wrapped the presents after we got back from the midnight service, although technically I suppose that was Christmas day….
Up until last year, my answer would have been “until we had to leave for the midnight service”. Last Christmas was my first with a baby, then four months old, and it took so long to get her to sleep that I was still wrapping presents after my husband left for the service.
We’ve got the book so give it to someone else but we’re regularly still wrapping presents at 3AM on Christmas morning. Latest was 5:30AM. We’re usually very tired on Christmas day. I should explain the reason for this is usually because we’re also doing last minute cleaning for the big day (which we usualy spend at somebody else’s house!)
2 years ago we got ahead of ourselves and did it all by 11PM. One of the kids woke for a wee around 1 and (having seen the presents at the end of the bed) couldn’t get back to sleep. Their crying woke the other one who then saw her presents and – coudn’t get back to sleep. So we had five hours of them going to bed and getting back up having “tried” to go to sleep about ten minutes later. That year we actually ended up with less sleep than we normally do when we wrap the presents at 3am!
I always hope to be ready before Christmas Eve, but am so busy with everything at church & with family that I am often left wrapping presents after getting home from midnight Communion in the time before the children wake up and we go back to church.
I must admit that one year I was ill and so exhausted that I ended up giving the immediate family their gifts in tesco carrier bags!.
Every year I try to get organised. Every year I think that there has to be a better way to balance family & friends & church & ministry … and maybe even a few minutes for me? Let me know if you have found the answer!
2am in the morning once everybody was in bed asleep including my dear wife whom would open the presents quicker then I wrapped them up which spoils Christmas and then with the 5.30am with stockings is a very short night’s sleep
It’s not the wrapping that’s the problem, it’s actually locating the presents. Have spent so long ensuring they are well hidden that I actually forget myself. Problems arise when I realise some are actually in kids room or loft!
3.00 a.m. the year my husband made a dolls’ house for our daughter – IT wasn’t finished before that. Regularly 2.00 when I get back from putting the church to bed after midnight Mass…
Usually finishing things off after midnight service but have been known to rediscover a well hidden present as late as July!
The latest was 6.30am on Christmas Day itself (with wine)!
I always find myself wrapping pressies for the Boys stockings until very late on Christmas Eve. Then trying to quietly stuff the stocking with the gifts and place them outside their doors. My Boys are now 21 & 24 and I still do it. Just love Christmas !
Always try to squeeze in the last wrapping ( stocking presents & kids presents) between when the children finally go to sleep & when the first one wakes up excited to see if father Christmas has been. This usually gives me a window of 11.30pm to around 12.45pm. One day i will get organised and do it earlier. Or i just may wait and eventually they will have all left home!
It’s not the wrapping that’s the problem. It’s actually locating all the secret places I have stashed them over previous weeks. Have even been known to hide them in kids rooms – last place they’d actually look or find them in the mess!!!
The latest – have been up wrapping presesnts is 1.30am Christmas morning
Competition is now closed! Thanks for all your replies. I too (of course) have been up to 3am wrapping after starting whilst babysitting for the Midnight Service and then getting distracted in the process…