How to broach subject of reducing amount of gifts next year?

[snowedunderwithstuff]

Hi all,

probably like many of you, we’re absolutely snowed under with presents and toys, which I feel of course very grateful for but also honestly overwhelmed. Our house is relatively small and I don’t know where we’re going to put all of this stuff.

for full disclosure, my mum has always overdone presents and I find it overwhelming and uncomfortable. She’s also a very difficult person, so I find I have tricky emotions around this kind of thing because she’d buy us huge piles of presents as children and then throw them all away as punishment, and we’d go through all of our possessions and chuck them out before birthdays and Christmases because we knew there’d be a mountain of new stuff to put away and there wasn’t space. Meanwhile, she was angry and volatile and would give us the silent treatment regularly at the drop of a hat, sometimes for days.

She said (and still says to this day) things like ‘I don’t know what it is/does’, ‘I don’t know if it’s your kind of thing/if you’ll like it’ as you’re unwrapping presents so it’s not as though her gift giving is done with love or care or thought.

We have a child now and she claimed not to want to overwhelm us with stuff, pushed back and got him a Christmas Eve box when I said he didn’t need one, and got him a huge pile of Christmas Day things we don’t have space for and in addition to the two or three suggestions I gave her (which she had asked for).

polite suggestions didn’t work for MIL either. Of course it’s extremely kind of her to give DC presents but she didn’t use any of the suggestions which she’d asked us for and bought DD a duplicate of her Father Christmas present from us.

In a way, it’s taken a bit of the spark out of choosing things for my own DC because I know they’ll be given so much that they don’t also need things from me too. But as their mum, I’d really like to choose them a couple of things and see their little faces on Christmas morning.

For adults too, gift giving is getting so expensive and out of hand. I’m in the situation now where my give to my DB was far less in value than he gave me, so DH suggested that I buy him a gift voucher/hamper etc after Christmas to make up for it, which on one level I agree with and on another think ‘hang on, but none of us need all this and I also don’t have the money for it!’

Added to this DH’s (adult) siblings sitting round the table on Christmas day complaining that relatives who earn more should spend more on presents for them and it should be means-tested.

It’s all felt a bit joyless and overwhelming, tbh. AIBU to want to change the overconsumption next year but not know where to start?!

Fully ready to be told that I’m being ungrateful and grinchy! Sorry.

Just say no.
Tell her to keep them at her house.
There is no polite way of saying this.
I also imagine there is a huge back story ….the way your mum treated you as a child was abusive.
You are important.
low contact is probably the answer if you value your sanity and you’re not into drama.
politely and kindly set very strong boundaries.

I don't know about next year, but this year, - round up all the stuff your DM and mil gave your DC into one room. Go through it all and select the items you think would be genuinely enjoyed by your DC ( I'm assuming they are still quite young, otherwise get them to select items they actually want and will use) and that you have room for. Treat it like a shop and go shopping for things that you actually like/want.
Bag up the rest and put it in the garage/shed wherever.

Wait a couple of weeks just in case there is anything that your DC actually ask for.

Then take the bags to a charity shop.

Say nothing to DM/MiL
If they ask where X is, say "oh, I'm not sure where that is at the moment" This is technically true as you don't know what will be bought from the charity shop when and by whom!

Basically you can be in charge of what you have in your own home.

It's good you are so in touch with your feelings around your mum and your childhood in respect of this. I would suggest setting a number limit - say she can give him 3 things or something.

Re this bit: "She said (and still says to this day) things like ‘I don’t know what it is/does’, ‘I don’t know if it’s your kind of thing/if you’ll like it’ as you’re unwrapping presents so it’s not as though her gift giving is done with love or care or thought." I think you may be being a bit harsh. This is something my grandmother used to say. She never had much money and she loved and cared about us fiercely. I see this sort of gift-deprecation as stemming from low self esteem. A sort of separation of herself from the choosing of the gift to protect herself from getting it wrong. My grandmother absolutely did care. And in your mum's case it sounds like the act of giving the gift is meaningful to her, even though it is perhaps not to you.

By all means set some boundaries, YANBU. But don't go down the rabbit hole if it's all just tat, she doesn't really care. I bet she does, or chucking out your gifts wouldn't have been her go-to punishment.

Thank you for your replies! Sorry for not coming back sooner. This one is really interesting @Vound, I’d not thought about it like that - that she does care about the presents really or she wouldn’t have thrown them out. My dad used to wait until she wasn’t looking and get them out of the bin and hide them in the garage.

It’s been her go-to kind of phrase for the last 35 years and I really wish she’d say ‘I saw this and it made me think of you/I knew you’d love it’. I’d rather have one present that actually made her think of me (as I actually am), than the 45 or however many presents she actually buys and claims not to know what they even are. But I do get what you’re saying about low self esteem, that does ring true.

'Oi maa, next year less o' the tatt an more o' the cash'