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....

Grabby, cheeky, mean are words that spring to mind. I would nip this is in the bud now. Definitely talk to your sister, a united front is what is needed here

Your sister is BU. Let the boy get a present from his grandad FFS. I never understand why people insist on 'doing santa' like this, it makes no sense.
Besides, everyone knows that Santa only brings 1 gift per child, however else would it all fit on his sleigh? ;)

scottishdiem I'm not, not taking dads side. Just trying to process really as only found out tonight. More than anything I want to avoid a falling out as Christmas has just been 100 times better with the arrival of dn, even though he doesn't know what's going on!

For full disclosure I think it has been partly prompted by us all going a bit massively overboard with gifts for him last year. We had already agreed to cut back though.

It's definitely not a finance issue for her.

Some pretty strong reactions here and it has made me feel a bit more confident to challenge it. So no one does it this way? I hadn't heard of it either to be honest.

Your sister is being unreasonable. In our house stocking gifts camw from Santa and all other gifts were from us and relatives.
The same as my brother a sister did.

Your sister is wrong to try and dictate in this way.

You need to back your Dad up here. A response like the one suggested by Acrossthepond would be best. Then stick to it.

Santa drops off presents at my parents house and they bring them along to ours. They get a massive amount of pleasure at seeing their gifts opened when they are there.

Your sister is being unreasonable but like it was said previously a 3 year old wont care or realise who there from! Your dad was I tears? Bit much ain't it?

Open the 'Santa' stuff first. We used to have a pillow case at the end of the bed - snuggle up to open them. Then come down to 'big' pressies from family.

Gotta watch out with the 'big' pressies though. A full size go cart for a three year old is just a liability for the parents. Yes, we pushed him around in it a bit but by the time he was old enough the thing was rotten and he had different interests anyway.

Your Nephew is 3. Best Christmas present for a 3 year old? My two both love their expensive teddy bears because they were there to share the stories. When my 30 year old moved house the other week his special bear 'GanGan' had its head poking out of one of the front room bags.

Stockings from Fr Xmas, everything from whoever they’re from.

Id say the issue arises from you going overboard last year.

Did your Dsis only buy DN one gift from her while the rest came from Santa? As a parent it is galling to put in all the Santa effort, only have one gift supposedly from yourself and then have the rest of the family look incredibly generous with mountains of gifts.

So I can see it from her side but I think she is going the wrong way about dealing with the issue. Can you have a chat to her and say you realise you made a mistake last year and are happy to limit your giving to one gift each and then stick to that.

If anyone wants to give more the agree that any extras can come from Santa.

Ok will need to formulate a plan. As much as I'd love to just say 'mumsnet thinks you're being a twat' I think I will need to play it safe!

I'm thinking of going down the line of, 'this is quite unusual, I don't know anyone else who does it this way' or 'it will be a shame not to see his face' and take it from there. If that doesn't work I may resort to the name calling!!

I feel stupidly nervous to confront her about it.

In our family Father Christmas is a sort of glorified postman. He delivers all the presents on behalf of the rest of the family AND adds a few surprises of his own. Sometimes he gets confused and drops some of the presents at grandparents houses by mistake - but that just extends the fun of present opening.

When dd was little all presents from us were put together. Since she was about 2.5 I have separated presents from us and presents from father Christmas, wrapped in different papers.
Presents from all other family and friends is given by them.
She is 6 now and felt left out on our wedding anniversary that we both had gifts and she didn't, so I can't image how she would feel if family gave other people presents on Christmas day and not her.

I wouldn't say the bit about it being 'unusual' - it's a bit passive aggressive and potentially inflammatory.

I would be more straight forward and say it like it is: "Dad's upset. He wants to share in the joy of the present giving. He won't go overboard, but you can't deny people the opportunity to give a gift to a family member."

rainbowqueen I suspect you've hit the nail on the head.

We all acknowledged we went overboard last year just excited really but we did have a conversation and agreed to cut back. We didn't specify number of gifts. Dad said we can give him a gift from us so now I'm wondering if that's the logic, all extras from Santa? Perhaps just a ploy to get us to cut down knowing we would if we can't give the gifts ourselves. Hmmm not sure if that feels better. Seems a bit sneaky rather than just saying please respect our wishes and cut down.

For those saying my dad is being dramatic he wasn't sobbing or anything but did have something in his eye shall we say when he said we couldn't see him opening his gifts (bar a small one)

I'm back to being conflicted on how to approach this.

Yes and also make the point about "How will DN feel if he thinks family didn't get him anything?". Your DSis needs to remember that if Santa is going to exist for the next 8 years, she is setting precedents now. Santa doesn't alter the way he does things generally speaking....

I would acknowledge you made a mistake last year, even though it was out of love!! And say would she mind if everyone gave one gift this year.

And if she would like him to have more gifts you are more than happy to provide extra for Santa to provide to him.

Remember he is her child, she wants him to think she is the most awesome (after Santa of course!). And she is the one that deals with the daily grind so that's fair enough IMHO

One gift each I meant!

Not sure why people are calling the sister a cheeky fucker that's trying to get others to fund presents for her, when OP has clearly said in the OP that sister is trying to stop people going overboard with presents.

If that was me I'd point blank refuse to hand the presents over to her. She's being massively unreasonable

I think all the adults need to get a grip.

I don’t necessarily agree with how your sister is managing the situation but maybe her reaction is in response to people ignoring her about gift giving in previous years. I’ve been there, buried under mountains of plastic crap that you spend the rest of the year tripping over because people need to get their 60 second fix of ‘watching their little faces light up’..

What I find really weird is your Dad has made all these weird connections about his grandson receiving gifts, he’s three for crying out loud. There’s a lot of truth to saying that the packaging holds more interest then the gift inside.

If this has brought your father to tears I would be concerned about what’s going on with him because it appears to be an extreme reaction, especially when he isn’t normally tearful.

Don’t take sides and collude with making the simple act of a child receiving a gift some kind of power play between supposed grown ups.

Mmmm I'm not sure about this one. When our children were little both sets of GP's used to deliver presents to our house on Christmas Eve so that we could put them under the tree for Christmas morning. We didn't ask them to do this - they just wanted to make sure their gifts were there when the kids woke up. Turning up at lunch time with a present in carrier bag just didn't seem very magical. Needing to see the our DC's faces when they opened the presents didn't come into it for either of them. We labelled all the presents we bought DC's 'from Father Christmas'. It never occured to me that our DC's would think that mum and dad hadn't bought them anything. And we never made a point of telling them that the present wasn't actually from Santa. Isn't Christmas all about children? Was your Dad wanting to personally present the gift and for the child to give thanks? It all sounds a bit formal to me. The child is only 3 - I think your sister is right. 3 is the perfect age for him to experience the magic of Christmas .

The best memories I have of my kids on Christmas morning is the wonderment of seeing all the presents Father Christmas has left for them under the tree. I know it's very unmumsnetty to 'lie' to your children about Santa but give the child at least a couple of years before you break the news.

Sounds like I'm on my own on this one so I'll bow out now.

Send something quite small for the weird Christmas event, and then spring the gift your dad really wanted his GS to have when they visit him.

We always open gifts from each other and from family members on Christmas Eve. They are all wrapped and have gift tags. The space under the tree is clear for SC to do his thing overnight. Santa Gifts are left unwrapped (because life is too short) in five little piles with each DC's small stocking with his or her name embroidered on it marking who gets what.