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....

I'd have taken it straight back, Alpaca... How does giving someone a gift for Christmas bust the Santa myth, even for kids who still believe?
Have they never seen their Mum get a present?

I can see your sister’s point about too much stuff. If your dad wants to lavish all his money on DN I suggest he opens a bank account for him and pays money into it when he gets the urge to buy stuff. My dad determined to do this for each of grandchildren on the day they were born. They would get a modest present (and my parents always asked what they wanted) but the real surprise for them (the real Santa moment if you like) is discovering on their 18th birthday that Dad had been investing money for them so they had a little nest egg. If your dad wants to hand over the gift himself tell him to keep it at his house and then when DN visits he can tell him Santa has left a present there too - that’s also a good way for your sister to spread out the gifts.

This really makes me think some people are massively overinvested in the whole FC/S myth. I think the idea of pretending a present from a relative is from someone else (whether real or mythical) is really bizarre. Surely the giver has the right to give their gift when they want or not at all?

Growing up, we (and all my cousins) got stocking gifts from FC and then everyone else exchanged presents after lunch - our mum's gifts to us and to our cousins and aunts and uncles, their gifts to us, all the cousins' gifts to each other. Everyone in our extended family seems to do the same thing roughly now - a few smallish presents from FC and everything else from the giver. Over the Christmas period, children will quite often have a few present sessions: at home with parents, at whoever's house the Christmas meal is, at distant relatives when we visit them.

What is all this bollocks about making it "magical"? It's fun for children because they get presents and have lots of nice food and see all their relatives and there's a tree with sparkly lights. It's exciting to leave a carrot and a mince pie for FC. It's thrilling to wake to a stocking on your bed with little bumpy gifts from FC. You don't need it to be any more 'magical'.

I don’t think this is about Father Christmas though - it is about family members buying sacks and sacks of presents for a three-year-old.

My Mother and In-laws used to bring piles of presents on Christmas Day, it actually used to make me feel ill wondering what we were going to do with it all, some of it had to be put away for later in the year it was so excessive. It was competitive and unnecessary, I eventually got it reasonably under control but they still go OTT in my opinion.

This thread shows that lots of families approach Santa presents differently. I think it's a Scottish thing that all your presents come from Santa

But that's not what the OP says - it's about the giver not giving the gift. If the sister/daughter doesn't want her dad to buy loads of presents, she can just say so, can't she? It's the insistence that he gives the present to her in advance so she can pretend it's from FC that is odd and controlling.

I've not read this thread. I don't agree with this marking gifts from FC which have been bought by other people. If people want gifts from FC then they jpay up themselves. And when people are generous and kind enough to provide gifts how dare people like your sis lay the law down about how and when. No wonder your Dad is upset. This is really ungrateful, cheeky, selfish and rude.

People need to read the full thread! This is not about santa!

The grand father here is buying sacks (plural) of presents for a very young child and the mother of that child is desperate for that to stop.....

@Viviennemary I'm surprised at you not reading the thread. Please do this isn't what you think.

I did read the full thread and I don't understand why the daughter doesn't just say that she doesn't want too many presents instead of complicating it by adding in some nonsensical "I want to pretend your present is from someone else" layer to it.

Your sister has missed the whole point of gift giving. Tell her that she is being unreasonable and unkind.

The op did state that her sister spoke to them about the excessive amounts of presents. It's obviously not worked though if the dad is so upset about only being able to give 1 present directly.

I'm wondering whether the sister isn't thinking that if all the sacks arrive on Christmas Eve she can intercept them and not give them to her child at all (or at least hide most of them). If the volume last year was very large (multiple sacks of gifts from more than one relative sounds horrible to me) I don't suppose her child even registered what they were, so wasn't be able to thank the givers for them properly in any case so it doesn't really make any difference if they know they are from Grandad or think they are from Santa.

A small number under the tree followed by a gift directly from each giver sounds much nicer for the child to me, and probably more satisfying for the giver too.

My grandparents always gave the best presents. Usually the biggest one was from my mum's parents, and I loved that they always seemed to get it right, made me think they really knew and loved us. In return we always made them some crafty thing that they appeared to treasure, so that was exciting too.

She's not opposed to the amount of toys. She wants to mislabel them so the child doesn't know who really sent them, and so that the people who gave them don't get to see how the gifts have gone down.

If she didn't want the toys she could have said 'If you are tempted to give as many as last year, please reconsider, and give them to X children's charity in Grandson's name instead.'

She is more than likely embarrassed that the Santa toys that she provided were outnumbered by the haul from the relatives, and wants to punish the people who outdid her.

I don't understand why the daughter doesn't just say that she doesn't want too many presents instead of complicating it by adding in some nonsensical "I want to pretend your present is from someone else" layer to it.

The trouble is for some of us that we HAVE said that, and we don't get listened to. It's infuriating.

She is more than likely embarrassed that the Santa toys that she provided were outnumbered by the haul from the relatives, and wants to punish the people who outdid her.

The trouble with these threads is that we all bring our own experiences to bear but believe me when I say that is not the case in my experience. It's purely and simply that there is too much. You end up with small children ripping the paper off something, throwing it down and then moving on to the next thing in a frenzy of excitement while being egged on by their relative. The only good thing about the frenzy is that it's very easy to whip away the crap and they never ever notice or ask for it back. It's easy to say "Just stop it, you're the parent." but when you're in a house full of people, and it's their elderly mother doing the egging on, it's a bit difficult to cause a ruckus!!

"That's really strange. Santa gifts are the big ones then little ones from family"

Other way around with us. Santa brings the stocking, everyone else gets credit and thanks for their own gifts

Same here. The stocking comes from Santa and the presents under the tree are from family. OPs sister is heading for trouble down the line when he's older. My kids are older now and know the "truth" but if they want a stocking they know they have to believe

Your poor Dad..
We do as suggested in our family- just say grandparents also ask Santa for a surprise and then let the grandparent give them a pressie.

We've always pretended that children's gifts in our family come from Santa (for as long as they believe) and if we're not all going to be there on Christmas morning, we make sure the gifts are where they need to be. I don't really see the problem with her request - she's trying to make Christmas as magical for her child as possible while finding a compromise to make you all happy. He won't believe forever anyway then you can all take credit then.

Agree with others that this route would make for a lot of trouble further down the years, and it also takes away not just the pleasure of giving for the adults now but also some important lessons about giving and receiving for dn later.
This may be way off the mark, but noting a few thoughts about redirecting funds, would your Dad get pleasure from starting a savings account for dn, buying one or two presents to unwrap and putting the rest of the money in an account? We have always kept presents small in my own family but my DM put money into savings accounts for my DC and it has made an incredible difference now they're at the point of going to university.

That's a shame. My nieces recently commented that they never had Christmas presents from us - their parents took the tags off and said all gifts were from Santa! Also we were hurt at never having a thank you!!

Seems a shame really because I certainly have things that I treasure because 'Grandad' gave it to me, or 'Auntie so-and-so' etc etc. If it all comes from Father Christmas/Santa, then while that is lovely and magical, long-term you're just not going to keep some crappy musical box, for example, because Santa gave it to you, but you will if a real live special person gave it to you.

So I think you should explain this to her.

In our house Santa delivers everyone’s presents., as in Grsndads gift would be labelled from him and delivered by Santa. Our children haven’t questioned it, it was how my presents were given to us as a child

Unless I’ve missed it, you haven’t mentioned your sisters partner OP.

Is nephew one of many for his family? Are they sensible with presents?

Are you sister and her DH thinking they don’t want to get into why granny DH only gets him one present whereas papa OP gets him a sack full?

We have that here and it puts a bit of a dampener on both sides presents tbh, because the kids struggle to understand it.

I think your dad is a bit OTT to be in actual tears over this. I think your sister is being unreasonable by dictating how gifts are going to be presented to a three year old who really isn't going to give a flying toss one way or another. One of the beautiful paradoxes of being a kid is wondering how Santa is using the same paper as mum bought last week in Asda and how that perfect thing off your santa list has apparently come via granny. As far as you're concerned I suggest you keep well out of it.