AIBU to feel miffed that SIL refused Easter eggs?!

Oh come on. She polietly turned down an easter egg.

But the parent does get to decide when the kids actually eat the eggs. As I said in my earlier post, the parent can always choose to put them to one side and bring them out some other time, if there's been too much chocolate consumed recently.

Unless you mean it's for the parent to decide whether their child has Easter eggs/chocolate at all, but it makes me kind of sad to think of them banning it outright, allergies/intolerances aside.

I'll quite happily have them and will even send you a picture of my facial expression as I've never had a unicorn egg before! 🙂

Did they give your kids easter eggs? If not don’t bother again. It’s so rude

You mentioned your in laws were away over Easter do you think she refused the eggs as a way to avoid an unnecessary visit ? When we were children we were very excited to receive eggs and I enjoy giving them but these days children are very fortunate with clothes toys treats and days out perhaps as another poster suggested the Mum considers Easter eggs another unnecessary extra .

Came here because I was starting to think I was the SIL 🙈 until I remembered I'm too averse to saying anything to my family about the incessant egg and gift buying in case it causes them to speak badly of me (and it wasn't Thorntons eggs!)

I can see where your SIL is coming from OP, in the nicest possible way. My kids ended up with a LOT of chocolate this Easter without DH or I even buying them any, between both sets of grandparents and my DGM. My SIL without warning started buying them eggs last year, which left me stuck as by the time the eggs arrived at ours Easter was long gone and I hadn't got anything for hers. Had to buy something else to send. Same again this year, but I was made aware by my DM shortly before Easter so was able to get something arranged.

Personally I don't like buying for buying's sake, and that goes for Christmas too. DH is the same, and fortunately his family are too. I enjoy giving thoughtful gifts, and made an agreement with my DB and SIL a few years ago to only buy the kids Christmas presents but even with that, they deviate from the requested presents and give extra whereas I don't and then worry that I'm being perceived as tight (despite buying exactly what was asked for).

I don't know how to broach the egg subject though without coming across as rude, especially as my DB wasn't overly impressed with the 'kids only' Christmas gifts a few years back when I had one child and he had none, and now I have 2 and he has 1. He's made comments about me doing better out of that arrangement than him (he means in terms of the spending on the gifts)...so if I were to try to stop the eggs now, I know he'll perceive it as being worse off as 'he' wasn't on the receiving end of as many eggs during the period as 'I' was.

Christ that sounds mental when I write it down 😂

Families...

Why do people come out with this? Why do you assume she had nothing else to worry about?

Often it's when our lives are shit and full of worry, that the small things like a gift bring rebuffed, hurt disproportionately.

ETA and here's another one
My advice is put your big girls pants on, and find some more important things to worry about.

Unless you know that the person's life is a bed of roses, why come out with this? And why wish stress and worry on someone you don't know?

Rather stunned at how many people think your DIL was rude. Without knowing her tone etc, the conversation either side of the statement and how your relationship usually plays out that’s pretty impossible to determine with the scant information you’ve provided, that, with respect, paints you as a victim of sorts. My advice is put your big girls pants on, and find some more important things to worry about.

I'd just turn up at theirs with them anyway - you'll get to see your nieces be delighted with their unicorn eggs. If they're only young Easter is probably a distant memory for them already so more chocolate will be very well received!

If that’s all you have to worry about I think you are doing OK

Thank God.

I disagree. And will be disengaging now.

Thanks for your thoughts.

The point is that the SIL and OP/DH have a tradition of exchanging eggs and the SIL used to give eggs herself

If SIL forgot to say a few weeks ago that she didn’t want her kids to have chocolate, that’s fine, but she should have accepted the eggs. Telling OP to keep them was rude.

Nothing wrong with that. That's the only part of your post that's reasonable.

I suppose I just assumed that as OP seemingly has a fairly normal relationship with them, that SIL said "thanks I appreciate it, but keep them for yourself the girls have had loads already". Or similar. And like her, I might feel a bit miffed as I'd got the "nice" eggs but that's it.

Effort needs to be acknowledged otherwise the giver feels taken for granted.

Why would OP bother making any gestures to SIL again? And what’s wrong with leaving DH to manage his own sister in future?

Sorry I think that's ridiculous. It's not a lack of respect. It's just a mum thinking she doesn't want even more chocolate in the house for her little kids!

I mean you do you of course, but I find the attitude that effort for your brother, his partner and their children is so contingent on the acceptance of a gift just utterly bizarre.

My DC spread their Easter chocolate out for months. We're often finishing it up at Christmas. It started when they were little and got loads and loved the egg hunt. They never had more than a bit at Easter anyway, and they've always been happy to enjoy the Easter chocolate as an occasional weekend treat. Even now, as teenagers, they're happy to eke it out. You don't have to eat it all at once!

I wonder if OP's SIL just thought it was getting difficult finding a time to meet, and thought she was being helpful by taking off any pressure OP might feel to feel to deliver eggs. So said not to bother rather than make a trip just to hand over eggs.

It’s the utter lack of respect for OP. OP tried to reciprocate a simple gesture and the SIL has thrown it her face.

I wouldn’t make any effort again. No Christmas or birthday presents, OP should leave it all DH to DH.

Oh my god get a grip of yourself. It's chocolate eggs! She hasn't turned down an invitation to OP's wedding or something!

You'd really just cut someone off like that because they said no thanks to chocolate eggs, over a week after easter?!

Then she should have told her brother beforehand that she didn’t want Easter eggs.

As it is, she has shot herself in the foot, she’s in a country where she has very little family and she’s just rebuffed her sister in law over nothing.

It would serve her right if OP gives zero shits about her anymore.

What the children don't know won't hurt them. They absolutely won't know or care that aunty shabby didn't get them an egg.

I think she's being silly, but maybe she just doesn't have the space to put them away and doesn't want to deal with the constant whinging for chocolate!

I can see why she did it. If it was a gift for an adult I'd think she should just have accepted it graciously and put it away. But if you are giving it to her kids she ends up having to be the "bad guy" taking it off them, or she has to let them have far too much chocolate. As a parent she probably doesn't relish that. She will already have put in boundaries at Easter and just as things settle down you're wanting to put her in the position of doing it again. Have some empathy for her and maybe ask, next time, if there is something she'd prefer you get your nieces.

That is proper mental.

Can I give my nieces leeks next year do you think? So instead of thinking aunt they think cunt?

It’s rude! I don’t reallr give my two year old chocolate but he got loads. We said thank you and put it in our cupboard when we got home - more for me!

Do you think she was making a point that you should have made more effort to gift the eggs well before Easter? I note you said they went away last minute.

When my kids were small both my sister and SIL told me my kids eggs were “here whenever you want to collect them”. That’s after years of me always gifting personalised Thorntons eggs to nieces and nephews and hand delivering them, always.