I was a kid of the 80s...
One Christmas we got a VHS recorder (I was around 5 years old). My parents loved the movie Christmas Lilies of the Field,and it was playing that afternoon. So,they recorded it.
Not understanding how things worked, I kept lookingbehind the couch to "catch" the guy who was recording the tv. I was never able to catch him, no matter howfast I turned around.
As for presents... there were five of us kids. My parents would stretch out Christmas, andget some time away from us, by disappearing into their room to wrap presentsfor several days leading up to Christmas. They would bring out one present at a time, and we would have to lookfor the name hidden somewhere on the wrapping paper. It might be spelled out inside the ornamentson the tree, or maybe hidden in the feet of a reindeer, or somewhere in Santa'sbag, but it would be there. The oldestwould find the name and give the package to the next kid, and then he wouldfind the name, pass it on, etc. Once weall found the name, we'd compare. Myparent's reused wrapping paper every year, so sometimes we'd find two differentnames, if they hadn't scratched out the old one. If that happened, we'd send the package backin and they'd remove the old name.
Christmas morning we'd have to find all the names again(we weren't allowed to "sort" them by name in advance). Sometimes we might remember a present if itwas special in some way (a shape or really heavy), but mostly we'd have to re-findthe names. One Christmas it took hoursto find the names. Dad decided hewouldn't hide them quite so well after that.
My son was an only child, so hiding names with himwouldn't work. What I did instead washide his presents! This came about oneyear when I was having health problems and needed to sleep in. But, I didn't want my need for sleep todeprive him of Christmas morning excitement. So instead, I numbered his presents with a sharpie and then hid them allover the house (I had "rules", so nothing would be hidden too well, itwould all be visible by standing in the doorway, so not in drawers, etc). He could wake me up after he found all hispresents (or it had been half an hour since he was able to find the last one). I made a list of all the places I hidpresents, with the matching number, so that nothing would be lost once I gotup. We did this for a few years and itwas always fun (and I always got to sleep in a little longer!)