To have swapped the presents

[Onahillside]

My DCs wrote a wish list of a number of items - all roughly the same price. We / Santa would get a couple and my DParents and DB one each. DCs identified which 3 they wanted from Santa - and I asked DParents / DB specifically which ones to buy. In fact one of them I had already bought and had delivered so they just needed to transfer the money.

When my DCs wrote their Santa letters, they then started to include items which weren’t on the original wish list (and therefore hadn’t been bought). It was out of our budget to add those to the presents - so I managed to get the DCs to be happy with a Santa letter which included only items from the original wish list (but each had one item which I had actually asked my DParents / DB to buy.

No problem I thought - messaged them to say we’ll need to swap the presents around when we arrive to stay over on Christmas Eve so that the ‘right’ presents turned up from Santa. Remember these are presents which I either sent them the specific link to buy or actually ordered myself.

Christmas Eve comes and after the DCs go to bed, I say ‘right let’s get the presents swapped’ expecting it to be rather lighthearted / joking about the things you do for kids etc. Instead I was met with ‘you can’t, they’re already wrapped before you told us’, ‘we’re not looking through all the presents for them’, ‘you’ve really messed things up’ etc.

DM did get the presents and I found the right ones and unwrapped and asked her is she wanted X gift instead (similar value and still really wanted by DC). ‘I don’t care just chuck it in the bag’ (unwrapped with some other smaller wrapped gifts) was my DM response.

I told her I thought it would have been done in good grace and that she was being childish, she said I shouldn’t talk to her like that, raised some other issues and said I was always spoiling things and it all kicked off.

Anyway, we’ve ‘made up’ now but deep down I’m still annoyed that I was the bad guy and I genuinely didn’t / don’t think I did anything wrong asking for the presents to be swapped - especially given the way they were chosen and bought.

Ps - my DPs love my kids dearly and would have been happy to choose something for them - but preferred to get something they knew that they wanted.

So - was I unreasonable asking them to swap and expect that it was done in good grace?

Gosh I hope you've apologised profusely to your mum for being so rude to her. You've made a drama out of absolutely nothing here. Are you this controlling normally or is this just a Christmas thing?

I'll bet your parents wouldn't dare choose a present themselves. I found my kids favourite present was often chosen by a relative and something they would have never thought about
Chill out and stop controlling everything

Also - the presents they did actually play with the most was the swapped ones (ie the ones the DB and DHPs gave in the end).

I must be odd but totally don’t see why they would mind which gift they gave as long as they gave something the kids liked.

YABU

YABU. Do you control everything like this or is it a Christmas thing?

Utterly ridiculous, you behaved like a loon, you need to apologise

This is utterly ridiculous. You could have dealt with the Santa issue simply by telling your children that Santa didn't give the items in question because he knew your parents were giving them. I would have been utterly furious if something I had taken the trouble to buy for a child had been appropriated by his parents as a Santa present.

To be honest, I'd also scrap the Santa letter practice for next year. It clearly isn't magical for them, it just causes stress.

Why not let your parents choose their own gift ?

I must be odd but totally don’t see why they would mind which gift they gave as long as they gave something the kids liked.

Santa feels the same way, don't you imagine?

Elfontheshelf - it wasn’t like that at all. They wanted to get something the DS wanted, I’d already got delivered to their house. I said why don’t you give that. They said fine.

OP are you going to acknowledge that every poster on this thread is telling you YABU? You can justify it as much as you like but clearly both MN and your family think you were rude.

I said but Santa knows your original wish list and so it has to be something from there

But that doesn't keep the santa thing magical, it makes him less magical than amazon, where you can change your list any time...

You made a mistake, your aims were good, but your Mum was right to be frustrated, too much thought and too much trying to control the story, although your parent was also wrong when she was controlling your list too.

Oh my word that must be the most ridiculous thread this week!

You will be lucky if your family bothers buying presents next year frankly, it's too much aggravation with someone like you!

Kids have the presents they wanted, from Santa or family = everybody is happy. If something comes from grand-parents, Santa knew so brought something else to avoid duplicate, how is that an issue?

I really don't understand your reasoning at all, but you do need to loosen up A LOT.

Sorry posted too soon. They said great, means we don’t need to go out looking etc. So I don’t get the difference between that ‘we don’t need to go out gift’ and another ‘we don’t need to go out’ gift ... is my point

Wow, just wow! You were totally unreasonable. Do you micro manage everything? Life must be exhausting for you. Your poor parents.

So your kids got what they wanted but they weren't wrapped correctly is essentially your issue.

You're not listening - fingers in ears, la la la

Yabu.

Dm and db went along with what you asked then you asked to switch on Christmas eve. Its a bit much.

You were rude, unreasonable, controlling and, frankly, a bit weird. Talk about over complicating things! Is this a reverse?!

Oh my goodness! That is such a complicated system!

I am afraid my children never wrote letters to Santa (and I don't think it has scarred them....) - we have discussions about what they would like of course (they are older teenagers now) but I generally know what they want.

They (still) get a stocking with a small range of generally cheaper items - silly stuff plus things like hair putty, nail varnish, a book or two (an annual when they were little!), bath stuff, socks, a T shirt etc plus sweets and a clementine of course! And then the rest of the presents they get are simply from the people who bought them - why should Santa get the credit!!!??? I even used to make them write a thankyou letter to each person(s) if they weren't seeing them soon - a text suffices now.

So relatives/friends got suggestions if they asked and would buy what they wanted and if I knew, for example, my parents were buying them Present A, then I wouldn't... My present would always be the big one anyway - the bike, the more expensive request and so on. No one would ever spend as much as I would spend so there was never a problem. (And I don't mean that I spent loads, just mine would naturally be the big one - I'm on my own - kids never got anything from their dad or his family since we split when they were little but that's another story....)

And we still do that! Its that simple....

I do know that some people do everything from Santa and each to their own traditions but your system (and I think it sounds like a system not a tradition...) is a bit complex OP!!!!

In our house Santa brings small surprises in stockings. Other presnts are from family or friends. Very occasionally a large gift that I know is really wanted is bought from Santa and placed under the tree but not usually. Much simpler to manage

Utterly rediculous! You should have written the santa letter first and then explained that santa chooses some items from the letter. Then emailed your family links to items.

My children get a small stocking from santa and them gifts from aunts and uncles are under the tree. This means that the children reminisce about who gave them specific items through the year and we can sippprt them in saying Thankyou to relatives

So the kids wrote a list for Santa, you bought everything in it and decided what additional presents DGM could buy?
Then the kids wrote a new list which Inc the thing DGM bought so you demanded she give it off Santa and put her name on a random other gift?

You're bvu and controlling.

Kids write a list to Santa, thry can put anything on it but you can't guarantee Santa will buy. Buy some off Santa, some off you and pass the list on. Then the other people paying WITH THEIR MONEY can pick what they want to gift. Simple.

That's so ridiculous. I don't understand why you had to unwrap them? Why didn't you change the tag?

My kids write a list to Santa. They have been told that Santa is a free spirit who may choose to get some items off the list or may choose to get them something else entirely. Makes life a lot easier.