MIL and the Christmas stocking

Don't overthink it 🙂 I remember asking my mum why some presents from FC had the same wrapping paper as ones from my parents, and she just said 'oh he must've borrowed some of ours' and I just accepted it, I was probably about 4at the time. I pictured him sitting at our kitchen table wrapping presents last minute 😂

Why did your mum do it to your neighbours nieces? This sounds so random!

Agree with the PPs here who say, MiLs goes under the tree and you say ‘look what granny bought you, how lovely!’

What you may want to discuss next year is whether MiL might want to shop for the stocking and buy 3-4 items each year. One year, MiL and SiL did the stockings for me and I just topped up with a few bits to make sure they were full to bursting. MiL realised at that point that stockings are expensive and full of tat, and stress-inducing, so has spent her money on an additional extra present since. But it was lovely the year I didn’t have to think about it!

@CoralRubyFish Do you have a 4yo? Mine absolutely would spend the day analysing where they are coming from 🫠😂😂

@Lumpofcoal We’ve had to have chats with grandparents on both sides about how we will be following our own Santa traditions with DS (now 4yo). They all firmly believe that we are batshit crazy and are ruining our sons childhood but he’s not their child and that’s that 🤷🏻‍♀️😂 just tell her that it’s lovely she’s done a stocking but it’s from her, not santa.
DS has a stocking that gets filled by Santa (small gifts - nothing expensive! An orange, stickers, chocolate coins, toy car, mini puzzles etc.) and Santa brings one gift from his list. Santa brings toys, he doesn’t bring any electronics.
Grandparents etc are welcome to do gifts for him in whatever form they please - stocking is absolutely fine if that’s what they want. But it’s from them.
My parents think this is ridiculous. Everything from mum & dad should be “from Santa” and everything from them should be sent to Santa, delivered to our house by Santa and kept under our tree until they arrive to visit on Christmas Day and DS can open their gifts then 🙄
DHs parents try to play the “Santa left these at our house for you” 🙄
Its very frustrating!

Sorry but she’s had her time with her kids. The presents should be with her and she’ll just have to deal with her upset.

I do stockings for my grandchildren, but I give them to them as part of their gifts from me.
They know that they're not the stockings that Santa fills. They're the stockings that grandma fills with extra treats, just for fun.

Just talk to your MIL - just say 'so how are we going to approach this then'? and work out a plan. If she's reasonable like you say it won't be a problem

I was going to say basically the same as this - my MIL tried it but I got my DH to kindly shut it down, as I was very excited to do their stockings.

There's easily room for two.

Father Christmas fills a stocking at yours, which she sees first. This is the official stocking and will be special/magical in its own way.

MIL comes over...oh my goodness Father Christmas left you another stocking at Grandma's house!! Or, if you don't want to do that and if MIL doesn't care, oh my goodness look at the pretty stocking Grandma got for you filled with lovely treats! Yay!

(Grandma takes stocking home to use again next year)

One doesn't take away from the other at all.

It should be from your MIL.

Our family have stockings from Santa (parents) for children first thing in the morning at home. We then have family stockings for everyone, adults too, after breakfast when guests have arrived (some small gifts and treats from grandparents). Tree presents are after dinner.

It came about because one family had the tradition of adult stockings, the other didn’t. It’s fun and we like spreading present opening over the day. DC know the family stockings aren’t from Santa. It isn’t any more confusing than having tree presents from family and stockings from Santa.

Sympathy. Mil did this one year, out of the blue. She felt left out because we had hosted my dps that Christmas, So she produced stockings in her house when we visited on Boxing Day claiming that Santa had left them.

The presentation was completely different to our tradition, and the gifts were a bit random too. Santa is extremely astute in his choice of gifts so they were completely confused and uncomfortable and thought it was a mistake and they were meant for someone else.

In the end ds (5) guessed that nana was making it up, citing as evidence that she hadn’t given them a present herself. I confirmed it with a discreet nod and then they happily played along, and humoured her. Just completely awkward.

First two replies got it right. No way would I be going along with that coming from FC. Otherwise it'll have to happen every year and you'll be filling up four stockings for the rest of your days. ;-) Coming from Nan, more acceptable. Still annoying though.

Be grateful she is a loving generous grandmother and spare a thought for those who have terrible or absent grandparents

If it’s just from her - fab, how nice.

If she’s pretending it comes from Santa / Father Christmas - whole heap of potential trouble.

BUT - don’t burn your bridges, honestly. In several years time when you’re fraught and burned out and broke from Christmas expectations, you might LOVE a bit of help and contributions!

This with bells on. My MIL constructed this elaborate theory about Santa visiting her by mistake and filling a stocking for DD1, DD2 left out...it was full of plastic crap and/or a duplication of gifts from us or other family members (despite this being communicated). DD1 was very confused about why this hadn't happened to her sister. DH spoke to his mum about it for the following year....she tried to pull the same stunt (for both DD this time), but we called it out and now she respects our family Christmas traditions.

THIS
And I'm sure your MIL will get BB a stocking/pressies as soon as he has some understanding of Xmas.
I think u r overthinking OP

I think some people just haven't thought the whole idea through. We have 2 grandchildren and dh often wants to replicate things that we did for our 2 children over Christmas. I have to remind him that we are not the parents of these 2 kids and he ought to run his ideas past their parents first.

She's being ridiculous. It's not her place to do a stocking. She can give it to DD later in the day if she wants but not as a stocking from Father Christmas.

Ugh, my mum did this to our neighbour's nieces.

At the very least it would be polite to check what Santa traditions you're following so she can fit in.

(I may be grumpy because she took MY childhood stocking around to do it...)

Fireplace stocking is from Santa, MIL stocking js from Granny.

I am learning a lot about how (not) to be a MIL off these threads!

We nearly had this same scenario. My DH explained to his mum that to avoid confusion, I would be doing the 'Father Christmas' stocking and all the other stuff (reindeer food, mince pie etc). Anything else - eg stocking/presents from MIL - was not part of that at all and would be under the tree later, with the stocking as the 'wrapping' and the presents inside very clearly described as 'from Granny' as they were unwrapped. In our case I think she was just excited and hadn't really thought it through (first grandchild). She realised when we said this that of course the whole FC thing has to be managed by the parents really and she'd had her time doing that for her kids, now it was my turn. I do think it's important to set expectations early with this sort of thing so it doesn't cause problems later.

I don't understand the issue. My daughter used to have a stocking in her bedroom to open in the morning and then several times my mother in law brought her another stocking with her name on it when she arrived on Christmas Day. I don't think most grandparents woukd see the point in getting a stocking for a baby who won't understand what is going on.

I would be pushing back HARD againt the idea of a separate santa stocking coming with MIL because it sets a precedent and, if your MIL is anything like MY MIl, her gifts will be ridiculously generous which we usually discourage as coming from Santa. Partly becuase I know the schools hate it when child 1 talks about the lovely Nintendo they got from Santa and child 2 got a couple of chocoolates...

Stocking is from grandma, wasn’t that kind.

So confusing when people try to relive the Santa years through children who aren’t their own, it’s just unnecessary.

I think you’re overthinking this. She will love having two stockings. It’s very easy to explain that the newborn only has one because he’s small. I’d honestly pick your battles, it’s Christmas, let everyone have a bit of fun.