Because we always leave town for the holidays, sometimes well before Christmas Day, we wanted a new system for doing presents. And thus "Chaunakas" (Christmas + Hanukah) was born!
The basic idea was that the kids would open one gift, either from us or sibling, each night as we counted down the days until leaving home. This gave them something to look forward to, made it so we didn't have to travel with presents, and allowed them to play with their new toys before having to leave them behind for three weeks.
At one point, however, the kids did ask to read a book about Chaunakas and we had to explain that it was a made up thing just for our family, haha. Real or not, though, it was a success!
The kids on the first night of Chanuakas
From us the kids each received a game, a book, a movie, a puzzle, something to wear, and a toy
They also had a gift to open from each sibling
It also allowed us to have a sort of "Christmas morning" experience in our home since we're never actually here to gather around our tree on real Christmas
