grandparents going over the top with Christmas presents

[hazelnutlatte]

Ok I know there are far worse things that grandparents can do but AIBU to be really pissed off that my parents have bought my dd's no less than 15 presents each for Christmas when they promised they would only get them a few gifts this year?
Last year they bought dd1 so many presents that most didn't get played with and me and dh only got to buy her 1 present from us as I knew it was going to be overwhelming as it was. We have limited space and this year we have dd2 as well so I asked my mum to reign it in for dd1 and to just buy a few practical bits for dd2 as she is only 6 months and won't care anyway.
Parents came round yesterday with presents (they will be abroad for Christmas) and there is a bin bag each full of presents! My mum knew full well that this was going to annoy me but I honestly think she has a bit of a shopping addiction and can't stop buying stuff! I really want to tell her to take some of it back but that would cause a huge argument.
My mum thinks I'm ungrateful and I suppose I am really but I just don't want this mountain of tat! WIBU to just hide some of the presents away?

I

You sound ungrateful. Most grandparents spoil their gc more so at Christmas. If all the present fitted into a bin bag it actually doesn't sound that much.

WTF?! My grandparents didn't, DH's grandparents didn't, DD's grandparents don't........

My MIL does this. She doesn't spend very much but buys the biggest amount of tat you will ever, ever see. Bags and bags full of awful plastic tat. It gets broken within minutes. She asks what they'd like but it's like she thinks it's all about the plastic tat.

There again, she buys dh and I random tat too. She does a lovely hamper which we always do appreciate and that would be more than enough, but DH doesn't need any more socks and - I hate how this will make me sound - I really don't need any more items of blingy costume jewellery that I can't wear because it turns my skin green.

I think its more likely that she's just totally taken up with being a granny and going a bit daft with things. I don't think you're allowed to apply common sense to a thread like this, Sansoora grin

Im glad I have the kids I do.

Why do people feel the need to rock up on a thread like this and tell the OP to appreciate the crap family attitude because their family hate them/are dead/come from planet dog and don't believe in tinsel and sellotape? It's bloody rude, and doesn't alter the fact that the OP is regularly being ignored by a grown woman who should know better.

In your shoes OP, I'd just take it all to the local women's refuge and tell your mum it's going to happen every year until she grows up and respects your wishes.

In your shoes OP, I'd just take it all to the local women's refuge and tell your mum it's going to happen every year until she grows up and respects your wishes.

Would you really or was it perhaps just very easy to say you would?

What would piss me off is that she's taking away your chance to buy things for your own children. Would she give you receipts? Would she notice if most of the things weren't in your house?

How beautifully condescending Sansoora.

I told my own mum that we couldn't handle the excessive number of gifts, and that if it continued the next year if have to donate some to charity as it wasn't sustainable. Thankfully, she got my point and agreed that it wasn't the best idea to carry on providing masses of toys for three children each year. She's a grown up, as am I. We figured out a good compromise that works for us all. If she'd not listened, I would have donated yes, and I would have told her why.

How likely is she to remember everything she bought anyway? My MIL likes buying clothes for the children, but often buys an identical tshirt or whatever on a separate occasion, or if I comment that something they are wearing is something she bought she looks surprised - so I don't think she remembers! (I used to carefully put the DC in clothes she'd bought when we saw her - there was probably little point!!) So maybe if you put most of them away / give them away, she won't even realise?

Oooooh, did Procrastinator touch a raw nerve there Sansoora?

No not at all.

My point is that its very easy to post here and say something you'd never carry through with yourself.

But Procrastinator has now said she did and all is well in the world.

How beautifully condescending Sansoora.

No. It was meant as explained above.

Sansoora how many Christmas presents have you bought for your DGC?

This year Ive bought a 3d pen for my eldest along with the plastic stuff to go in it and Ive still to buy for the other 4. My grandchildren are older now and Im kind of over the buying a toy\tshirtetc in each colour because I couldn't make up my mind which one I preferred.

I think the two babies who are between 15 months and 25 months old will get the sand and water play table their mums would like for them as well as a car or train or puzzle.

Then my grandson who's 8 will get his new football boots and a new giant water pistol for the pool.

My wee granddaughter of almost 5 will get a......? God only knows. She's changing her mind half a dozen times a day so it will be decided on and bought at the last minute. All of them though will have 2 new pj's, a dressing gown and slippers as that whats I got from my granny and grandad and at almost 60 I still think about them with happiness.

We all know what each other is getting the children because we all get together on it and we tend not to duplicate gifts so if one of mine said Im getting the kids their craft things then no one else would.

I also ask my kids what my grandchildren need and it just all works out.

Being a new grandparent and new parent is a learning curve. Why would you want to fall out over something like Christmas presents when you all have the love of a child bursting out of every seam?

I would just tell her she needs to take them back or donate. In our flat we haven't the space. We all have to carefully think and consider what will and won't fit. Anything large or repeats of what they have has to be donated

Luckily grandparents here listen. They buy something small to go with what they already have like extra Lego / pieces for train set, something they need like new coat, something to read so new book. They then pay for an annual family pass somewhere. That way they can spend the large amounts they want without piling home with crap they will be binned

Great back paddling love.

Well I suppose to your jaundiced eye it does look like that but it does take all sorts to make a world and you are who you are.

Sansoora - I have had to have 'the conversation' about overexcited grandparents buying the whole shop, they took it in and then didn't do it the following year because they appreciate that either I am right, or respect that even if they think they should buy the whole shop, that it's my right to say I don't want it all in my house.

The OP's mother knows the OP does'nt want her to buy piles of stuff, she knows that they don't want it all. She knows that by doing this, she is chosing to ignore her DD's feelings - so either she's deliberately trying to piss off her DD or doesn't believe her DD should be entitled to make this decision.

Asking nicely hasn't worked, and for whatever reason, the OP's Mother has decided it's ok to hurt her DD's feelings by ignoring her clearly expressed wishes about what happens in her own home.

For a lot of grandparents, about a lot of issues, it takes them a long time to make the mental shift from being 'the parents of the family' who get to decide stuff like this, to being 'the grandparents of the family' who don't.

you cant ask your mum to stop buying her DGD's gifts, however at the same time you dont need to bring them home.

Dino Im more inclined to think that granny still has to settle down but maybe, just maybe, she is compensating for the fact she wont be there at Christmas and isn't in the frame of mind to listen to anyone.

What is your Mum like the rest of the year? I only ask because my MIL is like this. She just goes into the shops with good intentions and then goes daft. However, she is amazing for the rest of the year so I ask (it does cut it down a tiny bit year on year) and then let it go.

Open the presents (my kids think my MIL always puts two bits of tape on pressies ;)) Select the ones you think DDs will like the most. Put anything that is not age appropriate away until it is, anything that's random little things add to santa/stocking/etc and hope that she'll calm down in time. You can bring stuff out later if need be, especially with your parents abroad for Christmas.

Why cant you ask her to stop? Wasting money adding to the greed, landfil gifts? How can children be grateful if they are over loaded?

Sounds daft but are they with you for Christmas??? My mum has always been on the side of more is best at Christmas until I pointed out how many people but my son presents and how long it takes him to open (play with) each one.

I said I wanted Christmas to be about more than just racing to open presents and could she limit herself to 5 gifts to open?

I've teased her about plastic tat separately!!!

K

My mum used to buy bin bags of presents and clothes for my children. She didnt do because she loved my kids, she did it because she loved shopping. If it was for love of my kids, she'd have spent the money on things they liked or wanted e.g when dd loved green and only wore trousers but mum brought her seven pink dresses.
I used to take the bags, unopened, to the charity shop. If mum asked about something specific I'd say "ooh I don't remember you buy so much stuff its hard to keep track ".

My mum has always been on the side of more is best at Christmas

That prompted me to think of how hard it was for my mum and dad at Christmas when I was young, and then again for us when my children were young, but getting older means you can have money to spend that you didnt have in your younger day with the result buying for Christmas and Birthdays is a whole different ball game to the one you were used to.

I can empathise. I have given bots sets of grandparents an allocation of two presents each to give this year. otherwise it gets out of hand. Especially once you factor in gifts from aunties and uncles and neighbours and friends!

In your situation, I would be very naughty and I would open a few of the presents and return them to a supermarket in exchange for a gift voucher. And then put an equivalent amount of cash in the childrens bank accounts.

And I'd put a few gifts away for giving to the children later in the year.

If your parents ask, just be honest and say there were too many presents and you have held some back. I wouldn't fess up about the returns...