AIBU to refuse a full early Christmas with young children?

Say you've thought about it and are happy to have a meal but not replicate Christmas day. It's a daft idea.

How old are your children?
Growing up we always had an extra early Christmas with my cousins, hosted by my grandmother because they always visited other family on the actual day. We loved it and it was 'X Family Christmas' with a roast at the start of December, where we all swapped presents. We all have fond memories and felt we got two lovely days.
Your suggestion sounds great. I don't think grandparents suggestion of pretending it is the real thing will work - tv adverts, advent calendar and friends/school will give that away or be very confusing.
I would stick with it being Granny and Grandpa's christmas party as distinct from actual christmas.

Your compromise take it or leave it (but do panto regardless, what a way to start the season!). If it was that important to them they shouldn’t have booked a cruise over Christmas!

well that bit they can't have. Its will also be missing the public buildup...stuff in the shops, public decs, TV, school activities, so there will be no fooling the kids and I don't think they should be expected to "act" christmas for grownups

@WarmHare Are they expecting you to have your house decorated with the tree/fairy lights etc in November too?
Might be a real PITA if you have a real tree...it's never going to make it to January.

I can’t see why opening gifts is a problem. Santa just isn’t bringing them.

let me be clear? Are they expecting you to do the cooking planning and so on? If so hard (well gentle) no from me.
Loads of children do have two christmasses (or christmas and Hannukah/Kwanzaa etc) because their parents aren't together. I am not sure about how old the children are but surely there are ways to compromise if you like your in laws? eg not all the decs, smaller quicker to deal with tree etc. obvs you won't lie and say its suddenly december.
As I said, key to me is how much you like your in laws. And yeah, Santa's not coming early but WE are gving nanny and grandad a christmas now so we can all be together.

Totally agree.

Even having read the latest update

I genuinely can't see the issue. They are not intending to "do" Father Christmas, which is the only thing that is really confined to Christmas Day. You simply tell your children it's an extra special Christmas Day just for Granny and Grandad. A bit like celebrating their birthday on multiple occasions because you have one party for their friends and one for each set of grandparents?

Maybe as DH thinks it's such a great idea, he can do all the prep, present buying, cooking,. house prep, cleaning etc.
And he can then explain it to the little ones what is happening and why.

Just to clarify they actually mean to replicate Christmas morning, so they’d stay the night before (which they would do when they’re visiting anyway) tell the kids it’s Christmas the next day, exchange gifts, make/have a Christmas dinner, play games eat chocolates, watch a film together.

The ONLY weird thing is “tell the kids is Christmas the next day” and I doubt they will and if they do… you look at the kids and say “Grampa is winding you up. Look, no Christmas tree, no stockings, no plate out of food for Santa’s”. End of discussion

When I’ve dug little deeper asking why they need to do that and why we can’t just have a Christmassy day, my MIL says that Christmas in Canada will be a more simple affair, they won’t do a full dinner, they’re not doing gifts as there’s too many of them travelling/meeting up.
That's their decision, to have a small and less important Christmas whilst travelling abroad.

Although they are not with us/our children every year they are usually with one of their children/grandchildren so they do feel like they’re “missing out”.
It was their choice of dates. As they're not there every year - what do they do on those years? Do they "miss out" completely or do you facetime them?

I wouldn't go along with this. It's too much and too early.

To be honest I don't see much wrong with this

It'll just be presents from the people who are there won't it. So the people who are there can see the others opening the presents they've given.

It's just opening presents and having a lovely meal. Which happens to be a Christmas dinner (roast dinner). You yourself don't have to say 'we're having Christmas tomorrow' as you put it. You can say we're opening presents from them and have a Christmas meal or whatever you want to say.

I mean Santa won't be coming then anyway will he. So it'll hardly be like actual Christmas

Just to clarify they actually mean to replicate Christmas morning, so they’d stay the night before (which they would do when they’re visiting anyway) tell the kids it’s Christmas the next day, exchange gifts, make/have a Christmas dinner, play games eat chocolates, watch a film together.

So no Father Christmas; no stockings; no leaving plate of food out for Santa; no Christmas tree.

Correct @WarmHare ? All the things that actually mark Christmas to young children

Your compromise sounds ideal.
I would let them give the DC their gifts early though so they can watch them opening them, DC will have loads to open Christmas morning anyway.
It would be a “granny and grandpa won’t be here for Christmas so you’re getting your presents early” though rather than full on recreate Christmas morning, and the gifts wouldn’t be from Father Christmas because that’s too confusing

How old are your children? Why not open the PIL gifts when they are with you?

We travel abroad for Christmas, so when our DC were little we always had two Christmases - one in the UK with local family and bulky presents, and one abroad with other family and Father Christmas presents (that would fit on the plane).

They were never confused and the real Christmas Day was always special.

We did Fake Christmas twice for travelling relatives. DS was 5 first time and took to calling it "Grannys Christmas". The rest of us just said Fake Christmas. There were no stockings or Santa or night before activities though. That is madness.
Edit to add we did a full Fake Christmas dinner. Christmas is food in our house.

They knew it was Xmas when they booked the holiday.

They want you to go to a shitload of work and pretense so they can have what they freely chose to give up. They want to have their cake, the holiday over Xmas, and eat it too, have Xmas with your kids. That's not how it works.

I wouldn't indulge this shit at all. They can bring gifts over before or after their trip, but it's not freaking Xmas. They made their choice, they live with the consequences of that choice.

Twelfth Night! A huge festival abroad, even has an important figure in a Santa-type rôle (and here in Ireland, it is literally a second Christmas Day, especially for women)

How old are the children? Could you explain it's an extra Christmas Day because GPs won't be there for the day Santa will be coming? I assume you will be keeping your presents for the real Christmas.

We've always had more than one 'christmas', could you do January instead rather than November. As January you could explain grandma and grandad were away for Christmas so want to celebrate with you now they are back. We do Christmas mid January with in-laws and we love knowing there's still a Christmas to go. We used to do early December with my parents and that would be stocking etc. kids take things in their stride.

Do it but say it's not Father Christmas presents, we're having GP presents and dinner as they'll be away. It doesn't have to be a drama.

They are very unreasonable. They knew when Christmas was going to be but booked their holiday anyway. Tough.
Your way is very accommodating, too much imo. We never did tree and panto so early so I would refuse even this (and the answer would be the same if it was my parents)
Christmas would be a very busy period anyway so I wouldn’t want extra hassle.