fireplace and hang them on the doorknob of our bedrooms. When we woke up, we could retrieve the stockings and explore the contents in our rooms.
We went to the living room to open presents when our parents said it was time. They weren’t cruel about it and it was fairly early.
My little brother and I had the bedroom at the end of the hall and we would have to go past our parents’ door/room to get to the living room. We would get impatient and crawl past in our best impersonation of a seal team operation. We generally weren’t as good as we thought and would hear the dreaded, “Boys, get back in your room!”
Sometimes we would successfully reach our destination, most likely because our parents just didn’t want to deal with us. We would check out the booty (Santa wouldn’t wrap the larger items) and crawl back to our room.