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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

birthday presents for adult siblings

4 replies

wanderingcloud · 06/02/2015 08:10

My DH has rather a lot of siblings. All, bar one, have a significant other and children. This has happened fairly quickly over the space of a few of years.

The tradition amongst his siblings is to all buy presents for each others birthdays. That's lovely don't get me wrong but now they all have an expectation of receiving lots of "gifts" on their birthday as a result.

However, since all the children and significant others began arriving there are A LOT of birthdays (5 in January!) The children still receive gifts but it's become the norm to give vouchers to the adults instead. Always at the same amount. More often than not for the same online retailer.

So, IMO, become an almost farcical swapping of vouchers every month between all the adults in the family.

AIBU to want to tell everyone to stop? Just buy for the kids and accept that, as adults, theres no benefit to this. For every voucher we receive we're sending the exact same amount back at another point in the year!

OH sees my point but doesn't want to question it so we just go round again for another year buying vouchers to give with our vouchers. Confused

OP posts:
AreYouListening1 · 06/02/2015 08:14

YANBU, it seems a bit pointless to me all the voucher swapping.

We send cards to the adults with a bottle of their favourite drink and buy presents for the children, it works well and seems very fair.

lornathewizzard · 06/02/2015 09:10

We do presents for adults or occasionally vouchers. Having the same rule for everyone does seem a bit silly. Maybe suggest changing it rather than stopping altogether?

SaucyJack · 06/02/2015 09:29

If it was your own family then I think it would be a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

But if one of my SILs tried to tell me I couldn't get my own brother a present I would suggest they got to fuck Grin

polkadotsrock · 06/02/2015 09:39

I've instigated this in my own and DHs family. They probably feel the same way but nobody dare verbalise it first. Then again I have one brother and DH has one sister so less people to care!

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