FURIOUS! My Mum just let my 3yr Old see her presents & Stocking!

[MotherofaSurvivor]

Staying at my Mums for Christmas. Brought presents the other day as all wrapped. Just finished putting everything in her Stocking in the spare room which was AGREED with my Mum that it was to be 'Present HQ' - For context, the house is a Bungalow, so I witnessed this from the kitchen and hit the roof.

So my 3yr Old follows my Mum around like a shadow as she adores her. Fine by me, gives me a bit of a break before I step in and take over.

So my Mum wanders into Present HQ (with my DD next to her) which has a Sofabed with all the presents on including the big polythene Stocking - FULL of presents!!!! My Mum turns away and starts gagging with something and I can see this in corner of my eye from Kitchen and just as I start to dive towards the room, my daughter exclaims "PRESENTS!!!!!! Stocking!!!!" and is sat looking through the stuff in the Stocking and admiring all her presents (wrapped, but still....) My Mum is stood next to her by time I shoot in and saying "Oooh! Isn't that nice!"

I. HIT. THE. ROOF.

I know that 'she's my daughter and I should've been watching her' but I was prepping veg for tomorrow and my Mum agreed to watch her whilst I did this. The door to the room has a swollen frame and so when shut, really takes quite a push to be opened. We had already spoken about how that would be perfect to hide the presents for this very reason!

AIBU to be not just upset with my Mum but bloody LIVID and feel like Christmas is ruined now? My Mum doesn't seem to see the big deal! I've spent months & Months buying bits towards Christmas as & when I could as I'm Disabled and so money is tight. SO upset

Please be kind (& festive?!) in your responses!

You hit the roof?! Your poor mother, what a massive overreaction about nothing! She is 3 FFS!

Christmas will definitely be shit now but it will be because of your vile behaviour towards your mother, not your small child seeing a few wrapped gifts!

I bet if she typed MIL the claws would be out

Nope. I would have said shit happens.

Willowthewhisp

Same here, I just kept telling my DS that they were for other people. I felt bad last week when he spotted one and said in a really sad voice "I really wish want for myself, do you think Santa will get me one the same"... I nearly gave it away!

Is there a help line available. This is a terrible thing to happen . Get over it it’s a Christmas blip not a disaster your poor mum you sound like fun.

I understand OP, your mother did a VERY stupid thing. However, it's also true that 3 year olds can be convinced of almost anything. If your mother is sorry for the mistake I wouldn't make her miserable any longer, we all do very stupid things sometimes.

Mum or MIL wouldn't have made a difference. If it was such a huge deal to the OP she should have hid them better or supervised her own child. Nobody deserves to be shouted at for hosting Christmas and daring let a child see a present.

OP, just take the positives from this -that you can blag it to your 3 year old, apologise to your mum and try not to listen to your anxiety, although I'm sure that must be difficult. I hope you have a Happy Christmas.

I thought people kept presents under the tree...we always did. So ds sees the presents and patiently wait until he was allowed to open, since he was a toddler. Never had problem.

irvineoneohone Exactly. Seeing the wrapped presents adds to the excitement for a small child, it doesn't destroy it.

Dds Santa presents are wrapped in a different colour, all evidence of the paper and offcuts well hidden. I hide these presents particularly well.

At 3 your dd will remember but you can make up any story and she will believe you. Just make sure your story is memorable so that it doesn’t put you in a tight spot next year.

Your mother hasn’t ruined Christmas. Make sure next time you rely on yourself alone to hide the presents properly. Children get more astute with age.

irvine
I couldn’t put presents under the tree until dd was 8. She couldn’t resist opening them before that. My friend has always put them under the tree with her ds.

I would be gutted at this too OP. Also, mine at 3 would definitely remembered what they saw.

Can you wrap them in different wrapping paper or take them out of the paper and all loose in the stocking so it looks different? Or maybe take the stocking away completely and just have the presents in different paper? Maybe put all your DD FC presents under the tree and keep the others in the spare room and make s bit of a ‘show’ of bringing them out tomorrow, just do the ones your DD gets are magic from F.C.

It won’t be ruined, you’ll still have a lovely day but I would be so upset at this too.

I hope you have a lovely Christmas.

At 3 I really wouldn't care.

You are overreacting in a very big way. Your poor mum.

posters overreacting with all the starving children and other upsetting stories

I'm not at all overreacting. It's a bit of perspective. We all need it sometimes. When I'm particularly anxious and over thinking something, perspective grounds me. It's genuinely useful. Not at all to upset OP. Not my intention. But comparing what seems to be a big deal to a genuine big deal, helps with calming down and thinking more rationally.

Gemini69 Sun 24-Dec-17 20:35:45 what the hell is a Christmas EVE Box ???????

I think it’s a recent innovation. You get some minor stuff to open and save the good stuff for Christmas Day.

The Christmas box thing makes me pmsl. My DH had never heard of this, but being northern, it was normal to me. Mother dear was down last week and we spotted an actual Christmas box which I’ve bought for my DH and put presents inside. Can’t wait to see his face, it’s become a constant expression used around Christmas when dm always tells us things will be part of our Christmas box!

this is exactly the type of thing my mil would do.

Are you anxious because you are staying at your mum’s? It’s reallly no big deal. Have a glass of wine and enjoy your Xmas.

I get why you were upset: you’ve put A LOT of effort into saving, choosing, travelling, buying, wrapping, hiding these presents for her and constructing a magical event for her (esp. as her DF won’t be there?) and you feel as though your mum has let you down big time by not paying attention to what she was doing.
She didn’t do it out of spite though, did she? Maybe she panicked and couldn’t think of anything plausible to say at the moment to your DD.
The last year has been stressful for you, I get it, but please be kind to her too - sounds like she’s trying to be supportive by having you both there

Absolutely hilarious!!

Ha ha!

What exactly did you do/say when you “hit the roof”?

Aaahhhh thank you Maelstrop I've never heard of it lol

You could have totally defused the situation if you had acted differently. I can remember similar things happening when I was a child and I definitely believed whatever my parents told me. Your mum was a bit dippy but definitely not worth getting angry about. She's hosting you for Christmas and didn't mean to let your daughter see.

Pathetic really

And people wonder why MN is referred to as a nest of vipers. People can respond to say OP is BU, if they feel she is, without being such twats about it. In RL, no one would say "get over it/think of dead children/turn on the TV and see the bad news" to being told something by someone else. So in MN Land, no one can evef be upset or bothered by anything anyone else does because people are dying elsewhere.