AIBU by people's reactions.

I agree, you can suggest but it is very rude to dictate

Oh, I missed this! 🤣🤣🤣

Your poor children @ZebraGiraffe12

Can you imagine, the children certainly have no concept of gifts, money , etc at this age so they’ve not made any decision, op and her husband did.
Anyway OP, YABmassivelyU, you can’t demand what people do with their money. If you want to go on holidays, pay for it yourself or go on what you can afford. You can’t expect your children to be paying indirectly for it and really, you can’t expect people to fund it

Kid's ages missing again 🙄

I can't understand why it's only your MIL that's objected to your grabby decision?

You must be surrrounded by equally grabby, self centred people!

Can I please ask for a collective MN cheer for the MIL'

Doesn't happen often on MN.

👏
😃
🤩🙌

You sound incredibly entitled and rude

A quick AS shows your kids are 1 and 4. And you and your husband earn a huge amount.

Blimey! How much input did your 1 and 4 year old have into this Christmas present decision?!

It gets better, you don’t pay childcare costs because family members, including MIL, do it for free!

You're angry because the kids gran would rather buy your 1 and 4 year old a Christmas gift instead of paying towards your family holiday??

Fucking hell. Never heard of anything so entitled.

You're being incredibly unreasonable.

Lol at a 1 and 4 year old deciding to forgo Xmas gifts in exchange for a holiday 🤣🤣

Let me guess, you don't like your MIL.

MIL wants to buy DGC presents ...... go no contact

No other option!

Fucking hell £142k in income and you’re pleading poverty, convincing your 1 & 4 year old to give up a few nick naks from loving family members because you don’t want to put your own hand in your pocket and pay for a holiday!

And you’re angry that people don’t want to chip in towards your fortnight away.

You can't tell people to fund your summer holiday instead buying Christmas presents for children! If you paid for a holiday this year without banking cash from family at Christmas, you'll probably be able to next year too.

The other thing is that I could give a great gift for a one year old for only say £12 but if I was gifting actual cash I’d have to give £20 or more. So I would struggle to stay on budget giving to your kids.

Nope. You need to save if you want to indulge on holiday.
No way would I hand over money if the children are too young to have a say on how it is spent.

So you want your kids to go without presents to pay for your summer holiday. You need to cut your cloth.

I mean - being ‘angry’ about it is ludicrous. You say you understand some people don’t like to give money, and then you’re angry? Make it make sense?

“ But don’t you remember darling , we said we’re going on holiday instead “
said no one to a 4 year old with no presents at Christmas!

So you want others to not give to you....fine...to not give to your children to save you money on a big holiday not fine.

You can tell people you don’t want to exchange gifts at all anymore, then any money you’d be spending as a family on other people can go to your holiday fund.

You can suggest other people give cash not gifts if they’d like to buy the kids something. Maybe spending money in euros for their holidays.

But you can’t insist anyone gives anything. A gift is … a gift. It’s voluntary and chosen by the giver. If they don’t want to contribute to holidays and give a physical present instead, that’s their prerogative.

Oh good grief. Are they really only 1 and 4 ?!
You can’t do this , they’ll have no concept of money, imagine Christmas without presents for a 4 year old !

Conversely, if no one gave you money and everyone gave presents does that mean you wont go on holiday ?
You've obviously been able to afford a two week holiday this year, will the present money make that much of a difference ?

You can't control how other people feel about this decision, I don't think my mum or MIL would like it tbh. Also, I know the kids seem really up for it now (as they've just come back from a lovely holiday) but be ready for them to change their tune when everyone else is getting excited for Christmas with prezzies. Small children live for today, and come December 25th their holiday will feel very far away.

What age are the kids?
It’s a bit weird to expect children to forgot presents in order for them to pay towards a family holiday.

Either way, if someone wants to buy a gift they will. I don’t think it’s really that appropriate to demand that your MIL doesn’t buy the grand children Christmas presents and instead gives you cash so you have to pay less for a summer holiday. Thats a bit joyless for the grandmother.

With gifts, you can request, but not demand. Unless your MIL usually spends a great deal on the children for Christmas, it doesn't seem like it would make a big difference, anyway, though I can see that it might cause problems if other family members see that not everyone is going along with your plan and some of them resent it.

My family never spent/spends enough to change where we would choose to go on holiday, if we had received the amount in cash, and I have such pleasant memories of opening gifts on Christmas... I wouldn't want to deprive the next generation of that excitement while they're still young. After they're older, it less important, probably, but the amount still wouldn't add up to 'holiday money', in my family.