Dad in tears about Christmas

[SingleKrisKringle]

My dad has been so upset tonight about Christmas and he's not a man who cries!

Basically he dotes on my nephew/his gs but my sister has announced that she would like all family gifts delivered prior to Christmas Eve as all presents are to be from Father Christmas/Santa not getting into that debate

I can't get too worked up about it. She wants him to believe, says we can say relatives told Santa to buy the presents they bought and still hand over a little gift from us, she thinks this will stop people going overboard and I think that will most definitely be a result as most people want to 'see their face' when they open gifts.

However I also totally understand my dads side too. He's concerned my nephew (3) will wonder why his family aren't buying for him and will see other people exchange gifts. I guess this year it won't be a problem but if she wants to keep doing it this way in future I can see that maybe becoming an issue. Also gratitude I suppose, if he thinks someone else is giving the gifts he won't be thanking anyone. Again, probably not so much an issue this year.

So... AIBU to be on the fence? My head is telling me keep quiet it's her decision, I don't want things to be strained for Christmas. I love my sister dearly but she can be ver stubborn. On the other hand my dad being so sad did break my heart a little bit.

Any suggestions for compromise or reasons one way is better than the other will maybe help me get the splinters out....

[Fresta]

I have RTHT and I can't get past the fact that your dad has been in tears either. FGS, why are we defending a grown man who is crying over how his daughter chooses to play out Santa with her own child? How childish, or maybe it's emotional blackmail to manipulate his daughter and have his own way. He needs to be told that compromise is needed. He's her son not his.

[LadyPenelope67]

Not RTFT but I can't get past the fact that your dad has been in tears. Does your sister know that? If not, she needs telling. And if she still doesn't care enough to rethink, she needs to give her head a wobble. Your poor dad.
The wee boy is NOT going to be traumatised by the conundrum of Santa v relatives' gifts, he'll be too busy playing with the bloody things. Any questions are surely easily deflected.
If the issue is your dad/others overspending she should have a word with them. Unbelievable the knots people tie themselves in over bloody Santa.

[bastardkitty]

That's not a good reason.

[GottadoitGottadoit]

bastardkitty

If you had read the thread, you would have seen that the OPs sister has good reason for making the decision she has. The OP has admitted that last year they all bought too many gifts and the child was overwhelmed.

The sister is only trying to limit them to one gift given face to face each, not banning gifts all together. Ignoring the sister is the most effective way of ensuring that the sister goes NC at Christmas.

[ZombieVampireHedgehog]

It's more exciting than my DC's although my Dad gets pressies, where everyone else toes the line & writes cheques / gives cash for their accounts.

To be fair since the eldest went into their teens it's been a nightmare trying to get a present under the tree, but will sit there working out if they've done better or worse than younger sibling who still loves presents.


Actually now I think about it my exes parents get away with buying whatever and don't have the money rule. But it goes towards a car / Uni etc so can't moan.

[WhyOhWine]

Your DS INBU in trying to limit the number of presents.
She IBU in not allowing your dad to give one (or even 2!) decent presents directly.

[bastardkitty]

I haven't read the thread. I would ignore her.

[Littlenic73]

Your sister is the one who is being unreasonable in expecting all the presents to be from Santa. It's much better for everyone if only one or 2 presents are from Santa and your nephew has the opportunity to thank the actual givers of the other presents. Otherwise she will find it much harder to explain why everyone is frantically Christmas shopping and some people get more presents than others.
The only advantage I've ever seen with all presents being from Santa is when the kids don't like what you've got them.

[Turquoise123]

This is not something for you to solve - it's between them.

I do wonder at the amount of sorrow caused by this "belief "in Santa. I don't think my generation really believed it - it was a lovely story that we all went along with but even at say, 3, i realised that fairies goblins and things just did not exist. I think I would have been pretty frightened if I had thought they were real!

Santa was just part of that. No big deal.

Seems that everything to do with children has to be a big deal now ?

[Zorrro]

My DB was the first to have kids and banned aunties from gift giving - we were free to give clothes, or do outings or give money for their piggy bank but they simply didn't want lots of commercialism at Christmas. They were broke so couldn't reciprocate. And he was right to ban us - we would have gone overboard on the first grandchildren of the family.

Now we've all got our own and I think we follow a similar model:
One big gift from Santa, plus a smaller surprise and a stocking with some cheap nicknacks.
Smaller (more practical/educational) gift from Mum & Dad,
One gift from each side of the grandparents.
A gift from each godparent.
Labelled and given from each.

That's 8 pretty decent gifts and loads for a small kid rather than mountains of plasticky tat.

I love that my DS getting gifts is part of his Christmas, along with watching movies with us, or going skating or other things, but that the toys he gets are not ALL his Christmas consists of.

If someone turned up with sackfuls of toys for DS, I would hide them too and donate them to a charity that could distribute them to children who are not likely to get anything. I get to choose how I shape my family's Christmas, and I want it to emphasise family spending time together rather than gift giving.

[Laura25o6]

@JanKind seems like the sister doesn’t want family around at all in the day. She’s a meany

[Redglitter]

We only ever got one present from Santa - out biggest present. We still came in on Christmas morning to a shit load of presents though but we knew they were from Mum & Dad. I'm sure our Christmases were just as magical as those who got everything from Santa

There's no way I'd give my nieces presents to my brother & sil before Xmas to be passed off as from Santa. Not because as pp say for the kudos and thanks etc but because I spend a lot of time and money on my nieces presents. I love finding just the right gift and I love seeing them open them and knowing I got it right. That's part of what makes Christmas special for me

[Nevertoomuch22]

Your sister is being very unreasonable and so are you for taking her side.

[JanKind]

Why can't you and your dad just bring the presents on the day and say "I asked Santa to bring you this but he made a mistake dropped it down my chimney instead?" Solves everyone's anxieties in one fell swoop

[DarthMaiden]

I get where your DS is coming from tbh.

Both my parents and PIL are very generous with the children - for which we are grateful, of course, but at Christmas it started to spiral out of control.

The year DH and I finally put our foot down was when PIL had brought so many presents they had to come in two cars - driving one each - to bring them.

It was just massively overwhelming for everyone. The children barely had time to appreciate one present before opening the next. I was frankly fretting about where the hell we were going to put all this “stuff” and it meant we spent hours unwrapping presents so that Christmas Dinner was really delayed and we all got hungry and grumpy.

DH and I also felt it also undermined the gifts we had bought. Christmas Day became for the kids all about waiting for these “sacks” of stuff from GP’s and it just became a competition about who gave the most which was really off putting and personally we found distasteful - even though it was being done with the best of intentions.

In the new year we spoke to everyone and said we simply can’t keep doing this. The children’s rooms were bursting with things they hadn’t asked for and were unlikely to play with. Physically we didn’t have the space to cope with another Christmas like that (and it’s not like we have a small house either, it’s actually pretty big!).

We said we didn’t want to dictate how much they spent on the kids, but they needed to limit the number of presents and personally we’d rather they use the excess on something for the future - money in child trust account, premium bonds etc.

So thankfully that’s what they now do. The kids get about 5 presents from each set of GP’s still a bit excessive but the best we could do and they put some money into their savings accounts and/or by them more premium bonds.

It’s made Christmas better for everyone.

So my guess is your DS is trying to assert some control here and you should all really listen to her. You might not approve of her chosen method, but it is a parenting decision.

Not wanting your kids to be spoiled at Christmas to indulge the feelings of others isn’t a horrible decision - it’s actually a good one.

Re-directing is a good idea - panto, premium bonds, maybe an event in the summer e.g a trip to Legoland or similar with grandad to spread the joy over the year etc etc

[NK14030e86X11e1cbc9a7f]

I remember when we had our first child we thought along the same lines. We thought that all presents should arrive from Father Christmas but our story to our little one was that all the grandparents etc bought presents and sent them to Father Christmas to deliver. That way he knew that although Father Christmas delivered the items that they were in fact from his relatives.

This idea didn't last long, the logistics of Father Christmas delivering all the toys the night before Christmas was a nightmare. The storage and hiding of everything when we had our second child was not going to work. To stop this mess we told our children that after having our third child Father Christmas only delivered stockings.

We never told our family that they HAD to have Father Christmas deliver everything however , we asked if they could play along and they did.

The stocking delivery is soooo much easier and it is lovely seeing all the presents under the tree on the run up to Christmas and with the stocking being delivered you still keep that magic. Maybe warn your sis to possibly think it through a bit. To be fair to her being a parent is one big learning curve so this is just another thing to work out :-)

[Fresta]

Exactly, where is the magic of writing to Santa and trying to be good if he doesn't bring you anything except a pile of cheap tat, and your parents get you the things you really wanted?

[KirstyLaura]

It's really interesting to hear how other people do 'Santa'. I also always assumed the way my family did it was how everyone did it. Stockings in the bedroom from Santa, a few presents from Santa under the tree (which you wrote and asked for), then anything else from family, signed from family. I don't at all understand the logic of Santa delivering family gifts?? Why would he do that?

Yeah I'd just tell your sister no, that's not fair, we aren't doing that. But that you will limit it to maybe two gifts each or something. My family did the same thing on my firstborns second Christmas. We expressed gratitude, but reminded them we have to actually store the toys all year round. Plus he still played with the previous years gifts the following Christmas. It's normal to get excited, which you're all clearly aware of. Just reassure her you'll rein it in.

[Ontopofthesunset]

i find it strange that parents are buying kids presents at chrismas always thought it was a santa thing why write list when the adults give presents we have said santa doesn't give adults presents only gives present to children.nobody ever saw a present until christmas morning sacks were on the bottom of my bed.

Er, you do know FC/Santa is just made up, don't you? Some people don't choose to play along with the myth at all; some people introduce it as a make-believe story that's fun to take part it; some people continue the tradition that FC/Santa brings a small stocking or shoe of gifts but presents are exchanged between everyone. We never wrote lists to FC and neither did my children. They did write a Christmas list so we and everyone else in the wider family knew what sort of things they wanted.

There seems to be a hypermania in some families about pushing the 'magic' of Santa. FC/Santa is just one part of Christmas. Presents are just one part of Christmas. Christmas, for the majority of non-religious celebrants, is a few days of feasting, lights, presents, parties and seeing people you love.

If I see the word 'magic' or 'magical' on another post about Christmas, I swear (in the words of Private Eye's inimitable Message Board posters) I"ll do time.

[Ski4130]

Everyone does things differently, in our family only stockings and one big present (that dh and I buy) is from FC, all other gifts are from whoever bought them. How your sister chooses to do it with her child/ren is up to her, and you’ll either have to go along with it, speak to her about why you think it’s a bad idea, or risk falling out. By 9/10 your nephew will be more savvy and have an inkling, or even know, that it’s nothing to do with FC and the gifts come from family. I don’t see the cunty fuckery in them all being from FC if he’s only little, it doesn’t matter really.

[mumof3boys33]

In our house Santa fills the stockings and puts one gift under the tree each. I only have 1 child young enough to still believe but the older 2 play along. The gift from Santa isn’t their main present but maybe something they’ve written to Santa for.
I think it’s really important that they know it’s me spending the money and not Santa. Especially when they have friends who get very expensive items and others who don’t get a lot. They would ask why Santa brings better gifts to some. I can remember one of mine saying their friend got an iPod touch from Santa and why didn’t he deliver some at our house. So I had to say that that Mum likes to say all gifts are from Santa when actually they aren’t.
I also think from a young age they need to know who sent the gift so they can write a thank you. At age 3 I would have made cards using a hand print in paint and written them myself and got my child to do a scribble.
So I really wouldn’t want the child to think it’s all from Santa for those reasons.
I don’t like Christmas though because I find all this gift buying so stressful. My boys always have such high expectations. It would be nice if everyone could tone it down a bit.
Your sister is however correct in asking you all to cut down. But I definitely think your nephew should open your gifts in front of you knowing they are from you. Hope you get it sorted out so you are all happy.

[grannytomine]

For what? Well to have Christmas how she wants with her family. I don't get the reaction to this, normally we hear how grandparents have had their chance and need to let parents get on with it. Not sure why a grown man crying about Christmas presents turns it on its head.

[Mimiandroo]

Your sister is being totally unreasonable. Santa is a nice little story but it's not worth going so far overboard like she is. She's being really mean and controlling and for what?!

[suzy2b]

i find it strange that parents are buying kids presents at chrismas always thought it was a santa thing why write list when the adults give presents we have said santa doesn't give adults presents only gives present to children.nobody ever saw a present until christmas morning sacks were on the bottom of my bed.

[Kardashianlove]

Fresta yes, it is completely magical. My mum did the same and I can remember the amazement of coming downstairs to all the presents under the tree and saying 'he's been, he's been!'

Yes and sneaking all the presents in is good fun-my mum has sat round the corner in the car waiting for me to text to say kids all asleep! Or people sneak stuff into the boot of the car.

Everyone has their own way of doing it though. I think I would be a bit upset if my mum/dad didn't want to do it this way but there would be nothing I could do, I would just have to say 'ok then, you give DC gifts when you see them' but I would feel they wanted to give DC gifts partly for their own benefit-so they could see DC reaction/receive thanks,etc, rather than purely because they know DC will be happy.