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....

And as other posters said- DN won't be 3 forever. If all presents come from Santa, why does one child get an iPad for Christmas and loads of pressies and another gets a jumper and Monopoly? Worth thinking about.

What do people do if they don't see children on Christmas Day. Some of my grandchildren live hundreds of miles away, we rarely see them on Christmas day but we send or take presents before Christmas and they open them on the day and I get a phone call and a thank you for the presents. It's never occurred to me that I needed to see their faces when they opened the presents.

I help at a local primary school, I never hear children talking about who gave them presents, they talk about the presents so I wouldn't worry about them thinking GF didn't give them a present and other kids' GPs did. In fact by the time they go back to school in January I think most of them don't remember half the presents let alone who gave what.

All families do Christmas differently.

LavenderDoll - fair enough that you have your own traditions, but do you really need to be so disparaging about the OP's dad?

Friendnomore, kids just talk about getting My Little Ponies or iPads, don't they? They don't discuss the donor of each and every gift they got, it's irrelevant in the playground.

Santa only brings a stocking to be left at the end of the bed so it can be opened at 4.30 in the morning when the over-excited children wake. Everything is from Santa then, but later the presents under the Christmas tree are the real presents from people they know, and have to thank/write lettters too later (if old enough). Santa never brings anything that costs more than £1. This is an old family rule.

I find the idea of all presents coming from Santa really bizarre. Santa brings the stocking, and everything else is from family/friends. You wouldn’t need to write thank you letters otherwise! Also, don’t kids who get everything ‘from Santa’ think it’s odd that their parents get presents for other family members but not for them?

Hang on a minute: reading all your posts, not just the first one, she's told your father he can give his grandson ONE present in person, from himself, and watch it getting opened. Any extras need to go under the tree and will officially be from Santa, because last year the little boy was freaked out by the volume, and so she doesn't actually want there to be any more.

You say that last year he arrived with "not just one sack" of presents, which "overwhelmed" your nephew? So her toddler didn't enjoy his Christmas as much as he might. She waited until the New Year, and then explained this was a problem and couldn't happen again. Yet you openly admit her wishes, and actually what is best for your nephew, will be ignored if she trusts your father to be sensible. So, knowing him, she's created a system where the reward to your father of his gift giving - seeing the presents opened - is removed, because if he isn't there to get pleasure from it, he won't be as generous. Is that a fair summary?

All she is doing is setting out a system that ensures her wishes and his welfare won't get ignored and steamrollered by her father's desire to enjoy seeing his donated presents opened. Nobody is missing out on anything reasonable here that I can see. He still gets to buy a fabulous present. He just doesn't get to buy twenty.

In our house all presents are from real people - Father Christmas just brings them - sometimes he brings them to other people's house (i.e. Grandparents) so they have the joy of giving them. Is your sister going to pull all the tags off the presents?

Oh, and agreed on the Santa being the contents of a stocking! It was to stop us waking the adults at 5 am when I was a kid. Presents came from people we knew. The miserable hours spent writing thank you letters attested to that.

So, you’re “allowed” to give DN one present from you and then anything else you buy is from Santa and you need to take it all over in advance?
I don’t think this is unreasonable as she’s just stopping you from going crazy, (well I think 3 presents would be better!) as I totally am getting the logic behind ‘stop giving my child loads of plastic tat’. As much as it may be exciting for your family to go mad buying everything you can get your hands on, it’s not that exciting sitting through Christmas Day with a small child just unwrapping presents in a frenzy. When my DD was 3 by the end of the day she was unwrapping everything at light speed including her baby brothers (wrapped for show) and most of the adults. She didn’t pause, just got faster at ripping paper!

Definitely agree with putting money into an account and then buying 1 present.
My DM also buys loads of stuff, it’s very annoying, but now you’ve made me realise it’s not love for the grandchildren, it’s love for herself to be queen of the present givers and one present is enough! There should be a campaign!!

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar, I haven't found it just to be about the gifts and not the present-givers. As mummyofcutetwo said earlier, there can be emotions attached to the gifts because of who they were given by.

Absolutely. But it's not generally shared information because the playground at large doesn't give a toss whether your best present came from your granny or your great aunt Bertha.
Irrelevant.

Your dad needs to get a grip. My mother did the whole, 'tears because we're not doing Father Christmas the way she wants is to', thing, and we now don't see her at Christmas because of it.

Secondly, my dad did the whole 'totally eclipse santa with sacks of gifts' thing, and it was a total fucking pain in the arse.

I'm with your sister on this one.

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar, I see what you mean now, thanks

Also, don’t kids who get everything ‘from Santa’ think it’s odd that their parents get presents for other family members but not for them?

No because Santa only brings presents for children. You can make up whatever stories you like about Santa, surely? It's a bonkers story about a man parking a reindeer on your roof and coming down your chimney. If you don't find that odd, then the rest is just details

When I was growing up people bought the presents, Father Christmas just delivered them.

Exactly Tallulah!

In my experience children don't compare whether GPs got them presents or not. They are too busy telling each other what they got and it ends there.

What an awful way to bring your children up to think: that their parents love them because they bought them a gift for Christmas.

kids just talk about getting My Little Ponies or iPads, don't they? They don't discuss the donor of each and every gift they got, it's irrelevant in the playground.
I disagree with this. My 3 year old can remember exactly who gave her what present for her birthday. She couldn't list everything she got, but if I held any toy up she'd know exactly who gave it to her. I think she'd even know the origins of toys that she was given at 2. (She loves presents!)

Exactly that Tallula
Surely Father Christmas means different things to different families - no right or wrong way of doing it

We were brought up thinking everything was from Father Christmas and that's what I do with my children .

They don't believe forever and it's magical whilst they do however you chose to do it

my sister did this with her children, Santa brought all the present, very odd.i think its so they didn't have to send thank you cards!

My kids are all clued into who gave what. Things become sentimental as a result

Think you should drop a hint to your sister that he was upset so she is aware that she has upset others and ask him to assure her that he won’t go overboard. If this won’t work, could always get him to turn up in full Santa rig - gs probably won’t realise it is him!

Really?! She wants everyone to drop the presents at hers so she can pass them all off as santa's gifts??
Fuck that!! I would be telling her NO! My gift is from me, not santa!!

I don't understand why your sister would want to make this demand but she also isn't thinking ahead. We made the mistake of Santa bringing all the presents from us (not family ones I hasten to add). Didn't take long for our daughter to ask "if Santa brings all these presents, what do you buy us?"

She is making a mistake, when my kids were small I gave them all the presents from me "from santa" but they began to think that I didn't get them anything and realised I was doing it all wrong and
Changed the way I did things. To get relatives to also give from Santa is a really big mistake and will cause resentment. She probably just wants to make things magical but I think she will definitely regret it.