I get on fairly well with my MIL but one of the things that frustrates me (ok, I'll admit there are lots of things!) is the way she buys gifts.
Background:
I have a toddler who she adores (our first baby, her third grandchild), and so naturally she likes to buy him things. For example before he was born, she bought vast amounts of baby clothes, which was a great help (although we didn't manage to use them all as he grew so fast!)
What we find hard to deal with is that she won't seem to listen if we say something is not necessary or not to our taste. My partner just says "stop buying things", while I try to let her know what we like...ie raving about the occasional hits, or going shopping with her, or ordering stuff and having it sent to her house (we live in different countries). I know she LOVES to shop!
But it doesn't seem to work. Neither of us want to see her and FIL basically throwing their money away. It's compounded by the fact that she insists on sending huge parcels that cost more to send than the actual contents, containing all kinds of food that spoils, clothes he won't wear...And toys that he doesn't play with, or which are really hard work (ie millions of pieces/really noisy), or books that my partner completely hates.
The thing is, my parents tend to ask us what our toddler is into right now, and then will ask us to buy it here. Online shopping hasn't really taken off here so options are slightly limited. They do like to choose gifts, too, so they'll suggest stuff, or we'll give them some suggestions of books and toys, then they'll choose what they prefer. My parents do send the occasional lightweight gift, and obviously if we visit they buy what they want to. I know some people feel that it takes the pleasure out of buying, but it's so much more practical. And we don't feel guilty about them wasting their money on postage (I'm talking astronomically high rates!).
The current frustration is that we recently lost a necklace that we bought when baby was 5 months, and we asked her and FIL to order a replacement. The shop had none in store but had them online, and since it only accepts locally-registered cards, we asked if they'd mind placing the order. FIL said sure no worries. Last night she came on Skype and showed us a similar but different necklace that she'd found in a local shop. It's really sweet of her but we were quite attached to the one we lost, and just wanted to get the same one (which was specially made for babies). She's insisting on posting it. I just smiled and said thank you so much, partner said nothing...
I guess it's not new, because even pre-baby she used to drag us to the shops and get angry if we didn't choose something (it didn't matter if they didn't stock what we liked, we couldn't come home empty-handed). We buy a lot of things online and perhaps have "unusual" tastes from her point of view, so the local shopping centre may well have nothing we like. It took many many years before FIL convinced her to respect our likes and dislikes and not force us into buying "just anything". But it's back to square one since our son was born.
What would you do? Say nothing and let things continue as they are (they're not short of cash and it does make her happy...). Or try again to explain gently that the necklace was special to us and we wanted to replace it? And quietly tidy away the endless clothes/books/toys (feel guilty too!). Not to mention the noisy cards he gets without fail EVERY year?
Just putting this into writing I feel unreasonable and ungrateful, so I guess there's my answer!