I think that there are too many parents (and mostly mothers) who consider their own views paramount, ie. "MY child, MINE!". What about the children who have the right to have separate relationships with their grandparents as THEIR right, without parental inference on every little thing?
This seems such a small thing, stockings at Christmas. Does it really matter how many or the logistics of them, really? Poinsettia had/has three and thinks that's great - she's the 'child'. Does her opinion not count?
For those who think this is a huge disrespect to the Christmas traditions they want to establish with their children, can they not just go to the P/PILs and say, "We'd like to do the stockings this way (explain). How would you like to establish your own tradition with the kids? (wait for explanation). We don't want to tread on your toes, nor have you tread on ours and it would be lovely to do different things... what do you think?".
I just can't be bothered to sweat the small stuff. It's NOT in the children's interests and all it does is cause bad feeling because when you need to come down hard on something that is important, your views just become like a constant refrain of 'Don't do this, don't do that' because it's said all the time.
You read lots of threads about mothers complaining that GPs don't take an interest in anything and won't help. I wonder how much of that is borne from some parents who delight in exerting a tyrannical and dictatorial control of THEIR CHILD. The only one that suffers is that child. I think it's so sad and unnecessary.