That old chestnut again...

[Edma]

I am pretty sure I read a few threads about this already, but here we are again...
I am from a country where all the presents come from Santa (until the children stop believing around 8/10).
DH is a Brit but has no problem with this aspect of my culture. We live in my country. I am not religious and don't have any other cultural hang up afaik.
Mil cannot accept this and every year tries to make sure the presents are from her. I offered to skip the presents just at Christmas and offer them when we are all together so DS knows and can say thank you. But that's not good either.
I don't get it. DS will be old enough soon so I am keen to keep this little thing going on for an extra couple of years.
Isn't making the children happy the point of it all? Offering is not about displaying your generosity. Is it?

[Gemini69]

I prefer children to know that presents come from people so that they can thank them.

Absolutely agree with this. Teach your kids some manners

I agree with both these comments... my Children are aware Christmas is magical but people give the Gifts....

[tumblrpigeon]

If I was your mil as you insisted on this , I would not give a present at Christmas.

I’d give a gift later in the year ad make it quite clear it was from me !

[TidyDancer]

OP your MIL does not have to bend to your will on this, and you would be out of order to try to make her do so. You only have the right to control how presents you buy are given, not those from other people. Unless MIL is buying something wildly inappropriate then you just say thank you and shut up.

You're wrong on this one.

[blueskyinmarch]

I think this is the tradition in Finland. I know my SIl use to give all her DC's gifts to someone in the village who played Santa and then they visited each home on Christmas Eve to deliver the gifts. I actually don't know if the gifts we sent over went in this pile of gifts or not. I think OP is getting a very hard time over something that happens in her culture.

[WorraLiberty]

Blimey OP you really need to chill out. Christmas should be a happy, fun time. Let your child learn to appreciate the simple act of gift giving at Christmas, instead of acting like a dictator! As for all this my country/your country stuff, it's pure nonsense as others have pointed out.

[MarthaArthur]

Op you are being unfair. I am also not from the UK and my country has many a weird and wonderful tradition but i moved to the UK as a child and we celebrate both traditions. We have santa presents and familu presents. Santa presents go under the tree family presents go in a small sack. I understand MIL being upset i would be upset if my neices or nephews didnt know my presents i spent ages making sure they love were from me. I understand why you want your tradition but your husbands traditions also count.

[TheStoic]

I’ve always done Christmas the way you do it, OP. All presents from us (parents) are believed to be from Santa.

But I don’t really understand your problem here. If we had other presents under the tree we would obviously say who they were from. Why can’t you do that?

[Highmaintenancefemalestuff]

I've only ever heard of presents being from Santa on MN. When I was younger adults bought the presents, the elfs collected them and Santa brought them back at Xmas if we had been good. The same with my husband's family and it's now what we do for our children.
If your child has a friend at school who received 27 presents from Santa and your child received 4 presents from Santa it makes Santa seem very unfair.

I've used Santa so many times in that post it doesn't sound like a real word anymore!

[Sn0tnose]

Because in my country ALL PRESENTS come from Santa. Gosh how ethnocentric!! Yes, I would agree that your attitude is a little ethnocentric and you are being a little unreasonable. You married a person and had children with him knowing that he was from a different culture. Did you not realise that there would need to be some compromise?

I can't see what harm it would do. As pp's have suggested, you tell them that their grandmother comes from a place where they give presents to their grandchildren and that makes them very lucky indeed, but the rest come from Father Christmas. You have happy children, you have a happy mil and you keep your traditions alive. Problem solved.

[Spudlet]

Your children are the product of two cultures, not just yours. They should be raised wih an appreciation of both. Are you going to try and alienate them from their father's culture in other ways too?

There needs to be some give and take here.

[wrenika]

Well maybe, since this is cultural-centric, it would be a chance to teach your children about other cultures by saying how, in other cultures - like MIL's - people get presents from other people as well as Santa, so that's why MIL has given them a present.

[WorraLiberty]

Wrenika makes a good point. It's a great time for your child to learn about and accept other cultures.

[melj1213]

OP YABU

It isn't difficult to say that all of your presents come from Santa but that because DS's granny couldn't be there for Christmas she called Santa and asked him to deliver a present from her too, along with the presents from him, and because DS has been so good this year Santa agreed.

If your MiL is going to be with you for Christmas, can't she just bring a few presents with her and say she wanted to bring him a present too?

My DD9 is just getting to the non believer stage but even from being tiny she has always known that she gets big presents from Santa and the Three Kings (she was born and brought up in Spain where Jan 6th is the big celebration and kids get big presents from the Kings) but her family also want to give her little presents too and if family weren't there in person to give their gifts then they sent them to Santa for him to deliver for them. It's not a difficult compromise to make.

[TheStoic]

They’ll learn soon enough. Santa’s a finite thing.

[EmilyChambers79]

*I am from a country where all the presents come from Santa (until the children stop believing around 8/10).

Mil cannot accept this and every year tries to make sure the presents are from her. I offered to skip the presents just at Christmas and offer them when we are all together so DS knows and can say thank you. But that's not good either.

So because you won't explain to DS that Nan/Gran has given him a present, she can't give one and has to give it at a different time of year?

I don't get it. DS will be old enough soon so I am keen to keep this little thing going on for an extra couple of years.

Isn't making the children happy the point of it all? Offering is not about displaying your generosity. Is it?

So why have you never blended your respective Nationalities cultures? Why are you so struck on insisting FC brings all the gifts? It's not a law nor a requirement.

When they find out he isn't real, where do they think presents come from?

We say he brings one present for every child in the world and families buy the rest.

I know of families who do the whole FC brings everything and their children are not the nicest.

Children don't need piles of presents to believe and to get everything they want to believe.

Don't you know that FC isn't one person anyway? He has helpers all over the world who children can go and see to put in their requests to and every adult and child who is old enough to understand can help to spread the magic of Christmas.

[FitBitFanClub]

Surely if anyone's being "ethnocentric" here (is that even a word?), it's the OP. She's refusing to countenance her mil doing something that is not against her own country's perceived culture. even though she's wrong about that

[Jux]

Your children know that their dad is not from your country or culture, so it won’t be too surprising to discover that MIL isn’t either?

I am sure that you can find a way to marry the two differing cultural traditions to make a much more interesting one that is exclusive to your family and which enriches your children’s lives. You’re going to have to do that for a lot of things over the course of their childhoods, so a good enough place to start.

[Dahlietta]

Because in my country ALL PRESENTS come from Santa.
Gosh how ethnocentric!!

As I said in the very first response to your post, OP, I am from the UK and in my family ALL PRESENTS came from Santa when I was a child. I know lots of people in the UK for whom that was the same. It's not an 'ethnic' thing

[roundaboutthetown]

Blimey, Santa is a selfish twat who wants to hog all the credit for everything if he won't let others give presents to loved ones at Christmas.

[Aridane]

France!

[Jux]

A friend of dd’s is Finnish. I remember his parents telling me it was their turn to do the delivering of the presents one year. So, even though (according to another thread here) Finland doesn’t actually exist, it does have its own traditions.

OP, if you were living in the UK, would you still follow this tradition?

WhenI was a child, FC cane down the chimney and filled our stockings, the presents under the tree were from people. It was soooo exciting when family friends and relatives arrived with brightly packed parcels which they then ceremoniously placed under the tree!

OP, you can still make it really magical. On Xmmas morning, after breakfast my dad would shut himself in the sitting room and put tinsel and glittery stuff up, and light lots of candles, while we waited, BURSTING with excitement for him to open the door. The main lights would be off, the curtains closed, it was like a grotto with flickering candlelight reflected off all the tinsel around he room, and THERE was the tree with its lights on too sparkling (only decorated the night before), and there was the Baby Jesus arrived safely in his crib (placed there in the night).

It was magic. It was beautiful, so different from our normal sitting room, we would gasp and be silenced - in our childish minds, God really had wrought a miracle and we were transported.

[ThroughThickAndThin01]

Santa is a selfish twat who wants to hog all the credit for everything . And after doing so very little.

[Jayfee]

Think op has given up. Surely Christmas is about sharing..and that often means compromise.

[paxillin]

Ethnocentric? I think you are Edmacentric and anything not done to your exact instructions is wrong. You live in your country of origin, if anything you should ensure to do lots of British things.

My family is mixed, like yours. If traditions differ, the minority culture (the one we do not live in) gets the final vote. Most of the time we do both, never had children complain about an extra holiday we celebrate or extra presents.

[Loubymoo27]

Why come on here to ask opinions then be rude about the responses. You're clearly not going to change you're mind or way of doing things!! My daughter gets stocking from Santa and then she knows who all other presents are from. I totally agree with other posters that it teaches manners. She writes and thanks people for her gifts.
I hate when people make all gifts from Santa!

People have put thought and love into the gifts and I think it's unfair for Santa to get all the credit!!

Each to their own though!!!!