Unpackaging the Holidays

As we just celebrated Valentine's Day, I am reminded of some helpful hints with the holidays and birthdays or any gift giving/receiving events.
I don't know about your kids with autism or special needs but mine love seeing their presents or gifts in the package and are ready to play with them right then. Well, this poses a problem because it takes time to get the toys or gifts out of the package, during which time major meltdowns happen, causing stress for the person getting the gift out of the package, therefore taking more time, causing a chain reaction of major stress and the day ending up not being fun, when it was meant to be a celebration time with smiles.
So recently, I started unpackaging every gift, including the candy, the night before or at least sometime before the gift is received. I get the gift ready to be played with immediately so that there is no lag time between receiving the gift and the gift being played with.
With electronics, such as an iPad, Kindle, iPod, computer, etc. it's best to get it out of the package, power it up, register it, get a few apps, music, or programs downloaded to the device so it is ready to be used as soon as it is given. I did this with both the iPad that Autism Speaks gave us and the Kindle Fire my family gave us and I am so glad I did because it took probably an hour just to get each ready to even download apps and then another hour to download the apps. So two hours set up time for EACH device just to be ready to use. That would have been a nightmare if I had waited to do these things until after I gave these electronic gifts to the kids on Christmas day. However, I did not even think about unwrapping the candy we had and I ended spending the morning unwrapping candy for my youngest but the other two threw the wrappers on the floor creating a huge mess.
For Valentine's day, I gave my oldest a baby doll complete with clothes, feeding supplies, a bottle and a diaper bag. For my middle child, I gave a small pop-up tent and for my baby a Lullaby Elmo. All with ties to be untied to get them out of the package. It probably took me 30 minutes to do just those toys. I decided to also put the gifts in their rooms to be discovered by the kids at their leisure. And this time I also unwrapped the Hershey's kisses and the chocolate Hearts we got and put them in a candy dish ready to be eaten. Whew, that went by so much better with not near the mess or meltdowns that we've had in the past. We actually had a celebration! It was a nice, fun, relaxing time!