To send this?

[noimaginationatall]

My family enjoy buying excessively for my child (2). LOs birthday and Christmas are close together so we have suggested clothes/books for birthdays and toys for Christmas - rather than masses of toys for both in the space of 10 days.
This has not been taken on board and the last two Christmases they have bought far too much. This makes my husband and I uncomfortable as we don't want a spoiled child who expects masses of gifts.

(They have form as we were ruined as children).

WIBU to send this to them?

"We would like to invite everyone to our house for Christmas dinner.

We also respectfully ask that anyone who wishes to buy LO a gift only buys him one. We want him to appreciate what he has as he is already very lucky."

@stonecircle they were thanked, told we already had bought one and asked not to give it to him. Next time we visited it was whipped out again just for him to 'try'!

I have suggested passes for attractions but they feel the need to give him something to actually play with on the day ! Even though he is far from deprived and will already have lots of new things! I like the idea of consumables but they have a definite idea that these are stocking fillers and not 'main' presents! So I worry we end up with extra by suggesting these things!

thatdearoctopus

Ruined is another word for spoiled

Another sort what about book collections eg full set of thomas , mr men ect would they go for that? Other option get the passes and ask them to get something small but that lo would really like such as playdoh set?

Or a fun family board game ?

Say you’ve set up a college fund for him and contributions welcome.

I did exactly this after several years of PILs buying tons of crap. I said one present only and if they wanted they could give money for savings.
But I said it to their face, I didn't text.

It worked - they dropped down to 2-3 presents and gave cash which we saved and DD is now using for University.

I have a similar situation. DD's Birthday is close to Christmas and PIL's very much favour quantity over quality when it comes to present buying. They always turn up with at least three bin liners full of tat, most of which isn't age appropriate or is almost identical to something they've already bought her. They live in a massive house and I don't think it occurs to them that, leaving issues of wastefulness and excess aside, we might actually struggle to store all the stuff.

We have asked them to please just stick to one present for birthday and one for Christmas and we were accused of being "ungrateful" and trying to "deprive" their grandchild.

I totally get what the op says. Some people are just unbelievably stubborn over these things. My relatives would always ask advice about what to get (to avoid duplication).; their godmother would always buy a token present and give a generous cheque for their savings (and how grateful they were for the nest egg that built up when they were older)

But my MIL . I could have asked and reasoned til I was blue in the face (and probably did) but she firmly took the line that they were her grandchildren so she could do what she liked. It's awful to see such excess and waste. When my dcs were babies/toddlers she just loved buying clothes for them - all from little shops local to her so impossible for me to discreetly exchange, most totally unsuitable (think sailor suits, uncomfortable fabric, wrong sizes etc.). But she didn't care. It was all about what she wanted.

So the family despite being asked not to, arrive with loads of presents, and op is supposed to smile and accept?
The op has already said chances are they will ignore any requests and just buy loads.
Surely it's better to nip this in the bud sooner rather than later.
How many years is she supposed to put up with this for?

It's a tough one and I've been there. I asked MiL not to buy lots of cheap plastic tat, much of which had dubious origins as to whether it involved child exploitation/labour. If she wanted to buy something really nice, we would offer her suggestions as to what would be suitable and to make sure she did not buy something we already had. Her protest was that something would catch her eye and "say 'buy me, buy me' " so we asked her to call us at the time it happened to agree (she never did).

We had to tell her again and again and she got really really huffy about it. In the end DH said that unless she took notice of what we said, she would not be seeing her only grandchildren because she refused to respect their parents' wishes. That hit home, and finally she agreed but it took a couple of years...

My DH parents never bought my children a single thing other than Christmas and birthday when it was 1 gift. They never saw a little item and thought ohhh XXX, YYY, and ZZZ would love that. They never bought even a packet of sweets , an item of clothing or a book.

Now I think that is odd!