Aibu and an ungrateful cow?

Hi op maybe your dh should say I can’t get there before Christmas so let’s leave the hampers from now on then say we will do presents as usual and if she wants to do a hamper tell her to give it to a food bank then she might just not bother.

How old is she? Could it be a sign of early dementia? It sounds out of character for her.

This is just the sort of weird shit my ex MIL used to pull. I still remember the year of OOD fruit tea bags (we didn’t drink fruit tea), budget brand toothpaste (?!) and cling film. In fairness, everyone got cling film that year..! I dont know what my ex got her, she was batshit and totally his problem. I just used to laugh about it.

If you won’t talk to her, or your DH won’t, just don’t go and collect it. Especially if they just leave it on the porch.

id also not get the things she asks for either.

Maybe you have unknowingly pissed her off.
Regift the hamper. Stop adhering to her wish list in future.

I'd be returning the compliment and giving her a Xmas wish list of my own. And keep a weather eye out for other odd behaviour. Being youngish and fit doesn't preclude the onset of dementia.

There are some really strange families out there - why isn't your DH plonking the whole thing back on her kitchen table and going through the contents with her.

If she's that fragile with him; he needs to tell her just not to bother.

My mum started showing signs of dementia in her mid-50s. Also a strong, active, fit, dynamic woman with a job etc. This sort of thing was one of the first signs.

I wouldn't so easily discount that she isn't okay. I would also discuss it with her, or have your partner do so.

This totally OP, whilst there might not be any other signs, this could be the first sign even if going on for a couple of years.
There will be other things but she is probably better at hiding them.

That was my first thought as well.

My grandma used to do a family hamper for us when I was growing up. Lovely stuff in it, and decently high-value, because they weren't short of money.
But in her last few years it got weird. Instead of fancy biscuits and cakes, we got multipacks of kitchen sponges and single yellow dusters.
There was maybe two years of weird, then it turned out she had dementia.

Oooh yes the update shows that the nice treaty hamper is the anomaly here... not the crap hamper.

I wonder if she was getting the nice hamper for free for some reason and regifting it, either unaware of how nice the stuff in it was, or not caring as its not the sort of thing she likes.

Now, she's no longer getting the free hamper, doesn't have it to regift, feels trapped into providing some sort of hamper... so is making one up out of utter trash from her cupboards.

Dementia obviously

My MIL was extremely generous with food when I first met her. Would over buy for when we visited, lots of treats, if anything got near a sell by date it would thrown out before you could blink.

She has done a complete 180 in the last few years. She now lives alone and gets really stressed over every little bit of food. When we go to visit now, we even have to take some essentials with us as she will get so stressed over buying things that might not get fully used up. One poor piece of lettuce kept being presented at every meal in a tiny ramekin (it was literally a shred) until it was brown and limp. She had to be persuaded it was OK to throw it away.

She also says its because she was born in the post war generation but it isn't, it's a new thing for her.

Again, plenty of money and very secure so that isn't a factor.

I know it's slightly different but it's so noticeably different to how it used to be. I think it's because although her life is full of friends and family, due to losing her husband and retiring, her world has shrunk daily.

Hilarious! 😀
Buy some used, useless rubbish, eg some tasteless china ornament in a charity shop (which you chip if it isn’t chipped already) then gift it to her this year.
See if she says anything.

Does she ask for expensive gifts for herself? If so, I wouldn't buy what she has asked for. I would save the crap from the previous year's hamper and re-gift it to her.

Well you know what to give her this year!! Random shit she gave you last year and stuff you don’t want from the bottom of the cupboard and random shit from B&M!! Ignore her lists!! She is well aware of what she is doing and this is passive aggressive - she is not a nice person and this is only out of spite she is doing this to you and your husband. I guess he isn’t the golden child or the favourite and your kids are not the favourite grandchildren?

I think the update you’ve provided on the sort of presents she usually buys is telling. The nice hampers were an anomaly (perhaps regifted and she hadn’t realised they were nice, and now she’s making her own).

It seems all her present choices are odd
/ thoughtless / mean. It’s the sort of stuff you read about on the stately homes threads about narcissistic parents.

My Dad became extremely anxious about money in his later years, despite being pretty well off.

I don’t think this is Alzheimer’s/Dementia and that’s saying it as a daughter of someone that started showing signs in their early 60’s and is now in a nursing home in their early 70’s.

OP I think you need to tell your DH that you both don’t want anymore hampers and then think up an excuse such as you’re trying to eat less tinned and more fresh food.

My in-laws love shopping and hate throwing stuff out. But they buy indiscriminately and end up with so much (shite) they don’t want or need but won’t part with because charity should begin at home and food banks just give to immigrants. A mental loophole is that they can give it to me and DH and they do whether we want it or not. Rather than fight it, I just give it to the charities and foodbanks. I’ve always considered it vaguely generational (not the racism etc, but the saving for a rainy day at any cost way of thinking) Just wondering if it could just be that, as the only difference is that ours doesn’t come in a nice basket

Yeah same here, seems like a weird thing to do especially putting opened things in there

My nan's alzheimer's disease began to really show in her early 60s.

If my MIL gave us a hamper filled with crap like that, my DP would get the point across with a 'joke' laced with honesty, e.g. "Mum, you do know we can afford to buy our own baked beans and spam?! Did you get bored of this hand wash half way through?!"
We don't expect or need gifts, but we would definitely question a box of clearly used and out of date stuff, even just to say please stop, it is not necessary!

Oh god this reminds me of my ex-best friend of 20+ years who was always notoriously tight, and her gift to me once… A big hamper, containing 2 reduced tops from Primark in 4 sizes too small for me (she knew my size), some very old bottles of Dove, a toiletries gift set that was faded and bent, basically all the crap she no longer wanted and/or had been given many christmases ago.
She was incredibly proud of herself for it, too! It was the only time in all our years of friendship that she’d ever given me any kind of gift - despite what I’d bought for her and her DD previously.
YADNBU OP, it’s insulting.

This sounds like my Inlaws. They buy the weirdest shit without putting any thought into it. We stopped buying for them years ago, and suggested they did the same, but they still buy 🤷🏻‍♀️ I think it’s more so they can feel good about themselves than actually wanting to buy something we would like. Charity shops do well out of us after Christmas 😂

She's mean.
Or she has grown mean with age.
What would annoy me more is your husband gaslighting you that its a mistake, leaking soap.
That would piss me off more.