My family started off the holiday with putting up the tree about 2 weeks before Christmas. The week before Christmas we went to the church Christmas pagent. When I was a child, there were no presents under the tree until we got up Christmas morning and by the magic of Santa they were there. My mother always made us eat a healthy breakfast before opening the presents. When company was expected early we had to wait till they arrived.
In later years, after moving away from home,it became tradition to get up early Christmas morning, open the presents then dress in nice clothing and go to my parents house where we opened more presents and spent the day enjoying family and an enormous amount of food.
Now it has become tradition to bake a Birthday cake for Jesus Christ and put a single candle on it.Then on Christmas Eve we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and have cake. Now we open 1 present on Christmas Eve, from someone in the family, then the children go to bed and Santa comes.
At my Aunt's house, the tree was not put up until Christmas eve after the children had gone to bed. Then Santa would visit bringing everything.
Merry Christmas to All