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?

You’re really making it too complicated. Apologise to your mum, and next year, relax a bit.

Talk about making a rod for one's back.

OP, I think everyone gets that you want Christmas to be magical and special for your children. But, honestly, you were ridiculous. Your children were being given presents that they asked for ... hopefully not everything if they were outrageous ... and hopefully some surprises! They won't remember who brought what, frankly, they'll just be excited. And your parents would have been excited to get them something they really wanted, just like your asked (insisted).

Calm down. Seriously. Calm down.

I don't understand why the OP posted this thread, she seems content to steam on through life unaware (or unable) to see that her actions are unreasonable.

FWIW OP you sound a bit unhinged and very controlling (and definitely unreasonable!). If this kind of bizarre behaviour has been going on a while then I wouldn't be surprised if your family are just utterly fed up with you.

I think you are totally missing the point about making Christmas magical for your children, and actually achieving quite the opposite.

YANBU OP. Ignore everyone else on here. Just come baaaack

Actually I sort of think that if your mum has said that she is happy for you to buy a present from her, she should be happy with whatever you buy and if you switch it. If I’ve understood right it’s not like she chose it and put thought into it. You basically said “I’ve bought these presents and was going to say this one was from you, but now I’m going to say this one so that DC can believe Santa brought the first one”

But I would never have actually bothered to do the switching and I wouldn’t have a Santa list that was viewed by kids as a list of things that they were definitely getting, just a wish list. And you could have said “well Santa is so magic that he knew grandma got that for you, so he didn’t get you another one”. So I think you seriously overcomplicated it, but I do think your mum slightly overreacted given that she didn’t actually buy or choose the gift.

When did xmas get so complicated?

I'm in my 50s and as a child 'all' the presents were from Santa.

There was a pillowcase at the bottom of the bed when I woke up, with chocolates and fruit and new pens/pencils/crayon/colouring books etc, which was enough to tell me that Santa had been!!!

I'd rush downstairs and there would be my 'big' present on display.
Nothing wrapped up.
I remember once a lovely shiny yellow doll's pram, another Xmas a wigwam I'd been admiring in a catalogue some months before. How had Santa known I'd wanted that? We didn't write letters to Santa in those days so he must be truly magical to know exactly what I wanted! (Maybe others of my generation had completely different experiences, but this was mine)
Aunts and uncles didn't really buy us gifts, as indeed neither did my parents for their nephew/nieces. Not sure there was really the money, but it just wasn't the custom either.
Christmas was more about the season and the atmosphere, the decorations and the food and the occasion than about presents. One big shiny present sitting in the living room in the half -light of dawn was really convincing evidence of the existence of Santa.

And now it matters if it was on a request list and has to be wrapped in the correct paper? Poor old Santa really has his work cut out nowadays.

Getting very happy that we don't do Santa at all, as this is not the first batshit crazy Santa thing I have heard about this year. Our kids get present from family and friends and give gifts to family and friends because they love/like them. If we wanted a fat guy in a suit to get the credit for something we have done, we'd go to work.

Feel sorry for your mum to be honest.

I think you overthought things. Maybe say sorry for worrying so much about the Santa list. Next year try to be a bit less controlling - DC can write whatever they want on their wishlist but make it clear they won't get all of it.

Christmaszilla! I think you were being completely unreasonable, they were not your gifts to take and rewrap

Got to agree with that hope you’ve apologised to your DM?

You’ve made this far harder and a million times more complicated than it needs to be. Surely your kids won’t care ‘who’ gives ir gets them the gifts so long as they are getting what they want?
I’m with the poster who said this :
Just tell your Mum that you temporarily lost your mind yesterday due to the stress of it all. She'll forgive you

Good god, my kids are older now, but they used to write a list, and they would one or two things from it. If they were lucky relatives used to ask and I'd suggest a couple of things based on the list.

It really wasn't hard, and if I asked them on Boxing which ones grandma or Aunty Marge gave, and which ones were from Father Xmas brought, they wouldn't be able to tell you.

Ludicrous over complication of something that really isn't hard

Christ on a Christmas crumpet
This is now in my mind, a classic Mumsnet expression - I love it, lol!!

Surely the children could put what they want on their list but have to realise they may not get everything?

Your mother is so patient with you bless her. You need to apologise asap. The childish and selfish behaviour that you displayed is so against the spirit of Christmas and you stole the joy of gift giving from your family.

Yowsers. This sounds awful. Talk about sucking all the joy out!

Bet your whole family can't wait for Santa to no longer be a thing!

This is one of those totally unanimous ‘Of course you are being massively fucking unreasonable, you lunatic’ threads where the OP makes a couple of indignant attempts to justify herself then slinks off in a sulk, never to be heard from again, isn’t it? 😂

Hang on a minute - Father Christmas buys the presents??? He never has for us - he just delivers them. How can he afford to buy for all the people who get gifts? I'm feeling hard done by now.

I don't think Yulezilla is coming back.

MN has opened my eyes to other people's batshit Christmas rules and regulations! Jesus.

I just ask dd for a list, give family suggestions if they ask, split the big gifts with dd's dad and put them under the tree on Xmas eve.. no drama, no wrapping paper rules, no gift swapping. I must be weird

When did Christmas become so complicated? It’s supposed to be fun not some torturous, logistical minefield of different lists, papers and gift tags that everybody around you is expected to negotiate. If, in trying to create the perfect fairytale experience for your dc, you are trampling all over the feelings of adults who care about them - you’re doing it wrong. It really isn’t that difficult. KISS. Minor inconsistencies in the narrative are covered by the all-encompassing word: ‘magic’.
Apologise to your mum, OP, and next year relax a bit.

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.

Once I'd wrapped the parents and put them under the tree and put my feet up, in honesty I'd find it irritating if somebody decided to swap and rewrap them. I think Christmas is about enjoying time with loved ones, and I'd see a last minute fake "crisis" as the opposite of this. I'd also feel it boded poorly for any other minor issues on Christmas day.

Personally I wouldn't have minded which present was from me, but the last minute creation of a problem I would find annoying.

If your kids have some items from their wish list and are loved, warm, well fed and safe on Christmas day, they are better off than many, and it's important to put small glitches into proportion. Please don't micromanage Christmas, if you go with the flow more your kids will pick up on your calmer attitude.

YWBA Twat

Eugh. My SIL pulls this exact shit “oh here’s a link to x, y &z which comes to the exact amount you should be spending on our children. Let me know when you’ve bought it and I’ll wrap it from Santa”. Fuck no. I spend my hard earned money on a gift I know they will like and someone else gets to take the chuffing credit? Someone else that doesn’t even exist I might add! ODFOD. I don’t ask what they want any more and it 100% gets labelled as being from us. I’m surprised your mother didn’t tell you to do one. Why the hell does it matter who or where it came from if you know it’s a present that they’ve asked for?! That’s like being pissed off that someone bought you a book from WHSmith not Waterstones.....! You sound like a chuffing nightmare

I've read through the OP twice and still don;t have a clue what the hell was going on here ? what is with all the present swapping and unwrapping business?

It sounds like some kind of complex military operation. I should think your Mum was confused out of her mind with you unwrapping her gifts and then moaning at her and being rude to her.

Don't really know what happened, but I'm team Mum - sounds like you sucked all the fun out of present giving - is your name Dyson ?