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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to do whatever I jolly well like with my Christmas present?

66 replies

sweetandtenderhooligan · 09/12/2011 15:41

MIL bought us 3 tickets for local Christmas Panto. As it turns out, we can no longer make it as I have a family crisis going on at the moment and we won't be around at the time of the panto.

I've offered the tickets to some really good friends who have very graciously accepted them. They are really good friends, always willing to help out with school pick up, babysitting. They've been good to us and are supporting us through our crisis at the moment which we're grateful for.

MIL wants the tickets back and is not happy that we've donated them to our friends. She said she paid "good money for them" and she would rather get a refund. My opinion is that they were our tickets and it's up to us what we do with them. MIL is furious.

AIBU??

OP posts:

slavetofilofax · 09/12/2011 17:10

YABU, your MIL bought them because she wanted her son and his wife to enjoy something. If that can't happen, she should be given the opportunity to do something else with the money so that her own son could benefit.

It was very rude of you to give the tickets away.

JugglingWithGoldandMyrhh · 09/12/2011 17:12

I'd hide the thread and not post in AIBU again if I were you !

I don't mind what people do with gifts I give them. If they gain some pleasure from them I'm always pleased to hear about it !

So sorry to hear about your sister OP.

< secretly considers you slightly crazy to post this, especially with no initial mention of your sister and why you completely understandably can't go to the Panto >

FabbyChic · 09/12/2011 17:12

Im sorry about your sister, in the grand scheme of things in your life at the moment tickets to a Panto is the least of your worries.

Dont worry about it, you just take care of your sister and try to have a decent Christmas.

LineRunnerCrouchingReindeer · 09/12/2011 17:20

I would pay good money NOT to go to a local Christmas panto. The Chuckle brothers, a shitting pony and one of the Dingles. It's not exactly Joy to the World.

It was nice however of you to give the tickets to good friends.

Pandemoniaa · 09/12/2011 19:32

While nobody should be forced to explain their circumstances, it might have helped if, in your OP, you mentioned that a close family member was dying since naturally, nobody would expect you to be very interested in attending a pantomime at such a difficult time.

Under normal circumstances I'd have said that it was U to just pass these tickets onto a friend without clearing it with your MIL. However, what you are going through at the moment has to take priority over anything else. Perhaps it would be helpful if someone other than you quietly pointed this out to your MIL.

ChippingInNeedsSleep · 10/12/2011 05:53

sweet - I'm really, really sorry to hear about your sister :( It's a bloody unfair world at times isn't it x

I still think you acted rudely & unreasonably - however your MIL actually sounds like she pretty much gets what she deserves on that score, so I wouldn't give it another thought if I were you x

iscream · 10/12/2011 06:24

I am sorry your sister is not going to be with you much longer. I hope she has a peaceful passing.
Regarding your usable tickets. I will pretend I am your mil. I would have preferred that you would have offered them back to me, so I could return them, and buy you something you would be able to enjoy. If they were not refundable, I could have given them to someone else that I buy for, for their Christmas. The thing that would have bothered me really would be I may not have been in a position to replace the gift. But if it was already done when you told me, I would not say anything (to you), and just buy you something else anyways. I would not have complained to you or your dh though, because you shouldn't be upset during this time. Inside I would have thought "Darn, why didn't she give them back so I could get her something she can use".

mockingjay · 10/12/2011 06:32

Well, normally I'd say YABU, but really, who cares about a strop over a couple of theatre tickets in your situation? Don't waste any more time thinking about this, you have bigger things to deal with. Let your DH handle his mother if necessary.

seeker · 10/12/2011 06:58

Puzzled now. You asked mil what she wanted you to do with the tickets, she said she'd have them back, so you gave them to someone else? How very odd.

wonkylegs · 10/12/2011 07:01

Gift is a gift ..... No-one should expect them and once they've gone they've gone. Personally I would have done exactly the same as OP

seeker · 10/12/2011 07:03

And if you had time to talk to your friends and for them to "very graciously" accept the tickets (big of them!) and to post on here, you had time to talk to your mil in advance. Tickets aren't like ordinary presents- your mil might have like to go hrself, or see if they could be swapped for another night- YABU.

nooka · 10/12/2011 07:24

I don't really get why you are having to manage your MIL at this time (or any time to be honest). Why wasn't it your dh who was talking to his mum?

I also get the impression that you feel that your friends are doing you a favour by taking the tickets ('very graciously accepted' seems an odd way to talk about receiving a gift). Which is fair enough, I would regard going to a panto as a bit of purgatory personally, but if you spoke like that to your MIL then I imagine that she might have felt hurt and snubbed.

In the context that seems very petty, but the present wasn't really the ticket, it was the experience, and re-gifting is essentially a rejection of the present. It would I think have been better for your dh to have spoken to his mum before you offered the tickets to your friends. But having said that I gave my sister a cardigan that my mother chose lovingly for me (I wouldn't have worn it and it really suited her, but I still felt very bad about it).

Sloobreeus · 10/12/2011 07:32

We cannot have dominion over what happens to a present after it has been given but I think you should have told MIL you couldn't use the tickets. She might have been annoyed but on balance I think that might have been advisable. Sorry. Hope it blows over soon. 'tis the season of goodwill the most difficult time of the year for some after all.

daveywarbeck · 10/12/2011 07:35

I agree with everything larrygrls said. And what seeker said about tickets being different to normal presents.

The point is you shouldn't be having to deal with this crap at such a time anyway. Your husband should have rung his own mother and explained that you wouldn't be able to go, and what would she like to do about the tickets. Perhaps she could have taken your DCs to the panto herself? Or buy something else for you with them?

KittyFane · 10/12/2011 08:12

You are in the middle of a difficult time, you can't go obviously but you should have given the tickets back, they were to treat your family, not your friends.
Your MIL is right to be annoyed but under the circumstances she should have just kept quiet.

NinkyNonker · 10/12/2011 08:20

If you told her that was your plan, she said she wasn't happy, and you did it anyway you cane expect her to then be happy. You had done the 'hard' or lengthy bit in telling her, so popping them in an envelope hardly seems like an effort. Of course if really you don't care what she thinks and this is just another reason to dislike her then doing what you did was the obvious choice. I think you were a little unreasonable in this case.

I can understand feeling like you just don't give a toss about all this pettiness at times like this though, I'm really sorry about your sister.

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