MIL has always been the one to handle buying presents for the grandchildren. Probably quite a typical situation as present buying often falls to the wife in my experience, though not in my own relationship. A few years ago, however, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and it's now got to the stage where she can no longer do this. Obviously the situation has been terribly difficult for the whole family and FIL in particular.
Instead of taking over present-buying duties himself, FIL has told us to buy Christmas presents for our 2 children and he'll pay us back and those will be the presents from their grandparents.
I'm unsure of whether this is reasonable behaviour or not. On the one hand it is a truly horrible situation and FIL has an lot on his plate and has been increasingly stressed. And they have a lot of grandchildren, not just our 2. On the other hand it's not really a present from them at all if we choose it and deal with the logistics of buying it. We could easily afford to buy our children an extra present each if we wanted so him paying for it doesn't make a lot of difference in my opinion. Children are too young to want to receive a simple cash gift (baby and 2 year old).
We're going along with it for this year anyway and went along with it when he did the same thing for a present 'from them' to our newborn earlier this year. But a part of me is a bit sad he doesn't want to buy something himself for his grandchildren.
What do you think?