AIBU to expect grandparents to wrap birthday presents for young children?

I’m surprised the responses here. Children love unwrapping presents, that’s 99% of the joy for them! Mine has been known to play more with the wrapping paper or box than the gift itself

All presents from me are in reusable gift bags - no waste and no struggling with sellotape.

You are being petty and mean spirited.
My mum used to come round on Christmas day with a carrier bag filled with presents. Some were wrapped, others not, but she had the gift of wrapping a perfectly square shape looking like she had wrapped a crumpled football.

How I wish she were still not wrapping, or badly wrapping, those pressies.

As if all this time the presents were in gift bags!!! Your OP is making it seem like it was either handed straight in the child’s hand a week before their birthday or a grubby old Asda bag.
A gift bag is a perfectly normal way to present a gift!

I can't imagine giving a single shit about this.

I always wrap presents, i enjoy wrapping and I enjoy watching the recipient unwrap. Its is lazy not to wrap up presents, however what i think is petty was my grandmother who complained about receiving a beautifully wrapped present in a carrier bag, it was purely for transportation purposes but after that i always had to buy a bloody gift bag for her.

Some people wrap gifts and some don’t, it’s really that simple. No you can’t tell others to do it your way.

I actually love wrapping gifts beautifully but I don’t agree young children prefer it, the wrapping is gone in seconds for them and in the end the gift is the same. I don’t think they really care.

MIL never wrapped
Never bought a present
Sent me the money to do it.

It irked. It meant she couldn't be bothered. She was retired and had all the time in the world. I was working full time, two childrwn at schools in opposite directions. Zero respect for the time of others.

I’d just be grateful that they had given my child a gift tbh. I don’t think anyone has a right to expect someone should do something a certain way in regards to gifting just because the recipient prefers something to be done a certain way

I can see your point with young children. Can you not ask them or you wrap them up after? I don’t usually wrap presents for older except at Xmas as to me it’s being green.

But the present is in a gift bag, not an ordinary carrier bag. I've hardly received a present wrapped in paper in years. Surely a gift bag is wrapping?

Because if it’s like mine it’s probably a bit of a manifestation of other stuff. So I know you can’t be bothered and this is it in physical form! Low effort as op says generally.

Grandparents give your child a gift and they don’t get to see them open it! Why do you make them wait until the birthday to open and not include the giver? That seems really unfair to me.

My mother is odd about presents. We once went for dinner with my father in law, she’d got him a four pack of beer and was just going to hand it to him across the table in the restaurant a bit like going to a student party! She also regifted him a tin of biscuits she’d been bought, it was a musical tin and again just handed it to him and then it became clear she’d no idea what it was .

she would never wrap anything , she doesn’t really buy presents but on the rare occasion she does and if she puts it in a gift bag she is very self congratulatory.

i think it’s off though like the op, but she obviously gets no pleasure out of buying gifts. She’s generally self centred and odd though - so my daughter had to wait a week for her 16th present as we didn’t go to her and the meal we were going out for wasn’t til a week after her birthday. As she gave her the present she told my daughter that it was late but it didn’t matter. So she kind of knows I think that she makes no effort but justifies it.

i once didn’t get a proper birthday card i got a generic pack one as I didn’t go and visit her on my birthday.

I prefer bags for environmental reasons, I would put a piece of tissue paper over it, though. I'd have a few colours in and put one in, to hide what it is.

If you are bothered about them seeing what they have got before their birthday. Just take the gift bags from the IL's, and don't let them give them straight to your children, and just say 'thank you, I will put these aside until the actual day' and then when they have gone, just selotape the bag up so they at least have to get the selotape off to open the bag.

If its on the day itself then they will be opening it straight away anyway surely?

I find there are two camps of people. Those who use wrapping paper and bows and things and then those who put the present in a bag and maybe some tissue paper. Neither are wrong just how they do things

I wrap gifts but my DH has always found wrapping presents very wasteful. It really bothers him on birthdays or at Christmas when he sees loads of paper going in the bin. He always tries to save and reuse it where possible. I don't worry about it in the same way, but I can see where he is coming from.

People have different views about what is important when it comes to gift giving. The polite thing to do is to accept the gifts graciously regardless of how they are presented, and to teach your kids to do the same. Aren't they lucky to have kind grandparents who buy presents for them?

Many years ago my girls loved unwrapping presents when they were small. In fact under age 2 a big box and colourful paper would occupy them for ages before they even played with gifts. Grandkids are now the same. After all that box could be a space ship or a den or anything....

Honestly, are these people really worth having them in your and your kids' lives? They are such low effort people that I can't imagine that your kids would miss them if you didn't try and maintain a relationship with them.

It’s more a figure of speech.

Some people just don’t wrap presents. Especially Christmas presents. Half the excitement is seeing a pile of wrapped presents!

Oh fgs. Pretty much everyone I know would consider a gift in a gift bag was wrapped.

So they put it in a gift bag? Honestly that makes this whole annoyance even more ridiculous. Just because someone does something differently to you it doesn't mean they are wrong and you are right. The correct response to receiving a present is thank you, not a thread bitching about its presentation.