MIL's Xmas present haul

[Squashpocket]

We won't be seeing my PIL between now and Xmas, so MIL has given DH the dc's presents ahead of the big day. I've just had a look in the box and there's loads. An absolute shitload. It's way more than we've bought.

My first reaction was 'wow, that's generous!'. But after a bit of reflection I'm now feeling a bit...pissed off.

I'm not really precious enough to do or say anything, but I'm still secretly annoyed that: 1) we've been upstaged (the dc wont notice who bought the gift)
2) it's setting unrealistic expectations for future years (they probably won't remember)

So, obviously IABU. Anyone else's families do this? Does it piss you off?

I would also hate this. One present per relative is plenty!!

The world can’t take a bunch of plastic stuff that doesn’t get used. Kids do not need that much stuff

No and i wish they bothered.

For the love of god just enjoy it.
They are doing it to be nice and out of love for their grandchildren.
Before you know it, everyone will be 10 years older and the grandparents will not know what to get/not be here/Not capable and the kids will be grumpy teenagers

Yanbu

I hate hate HATE when my kids get piles of plastic random tat from (loving well meaning) relatives. I've also experienced the rage of a grandparents 'pile' that was bigger than the gifts I had carefully chosen from 'Santa'

I hate the waste, the clutter, the impact on the environment. All of it. And no pleading for cinema tickets or lessons (or indeed nothing!) etc seems to get through.

Further to what I said earlier, and will reiterate that you are not in competition with parents, why will the children not know who bought their presents? Will they not have labels on them?

It's always the MIL....

Interesting the different views on this.

For context-

MIL is lovely - I'm not actually cross with her
It won't be tat - they have a bit of money
There is 0% chance FIL was involved in gift buying (is that really all that unusual?)

I'm actually not going to give it all at once, so thank you to those who suggested that. I think we'll bring things out over a few days.

I never had a massive haul at Christmas. I'd usually get one much wanted and subsequently much loved toy and a few bits to go with it. I don't feel remotely hard done by as a result and have lovely memories of my favourite toys. I don't subscribe to the view that children need a mountain of presents to open to be happy.

It's not always the mother in law. In this case it is. My DM has bought them 3 presents each. I know that because I bought and wrapped them

A lot of people are quantity over quality.

My kids are older now but when they were little the inlaws would set a budget per child, say £50, and then ask what we wanted. One year DD wanted a specific type of doll which was £15. That left MIL £35 to spend on all the tat in the world to "make up" the balance of her budget.

The amount of waste in the present haul families is disgusting.

I agree children don’t need mountains of toys, if they are in the position to want to spend a lot of money I would much prefer it to be 1/2 nice toys and then maybe a day out together.

I was thinking about the mountains of presents thing just yesterday. My DM was very much a "mountains" from Father Christmas person. She literally wrapped everything including essentials like new underwear, our favourite soaps etc etc etc and we opened 60-70 things each and another 30+ in our stockings... With the benefit of hindsight, I was really overwhelmed every Christmas. I got a lot of tat as well.

Yesterday I wrapped DD's presents. Her birthday is a few weeks later so I was splitting presents for Christmas and birthday and I consciously decided to give her less and to theme Christmas one way and birthday another. Then I called close relatives (siblings) to say things like "I picked up xxxxx for DD during the year but Father Christmas has clearly overloaded his sleigh for her. Are you still after an idea...

Now she's a GP, my mum's calmed the hell down and buys one main present for DD and accessorises it... this year it's a play pram and bedding for example. My in-laws are really great too.

Could always save some up for another time of year if it's all a bit much, or have a look to see if your area has a toy bank you can donate to.

YANBU. We have limited SIL and PIL to one present each for DC. We explained how overwhelmed DS was by the pile they got him when he was 2 and once they saw him ignoring the pile, being cajoled to open more and it having to be spread out over 3 days because he just wasnt interested they took it on board

YBU, Be grateful for the effort as some won't receive any gifts

I’m also uncomfortable with the consumerism and materialism of piles of unnecessary presents. Presents do not equal love. One or two nice gifts from each relative is plenty.

When my kids were little we didn't really buy them much - grandparents supplied everything they wanted and more. I don't think you can't stop them buying gifts for your DC, but it's not a competition so don't add to it. What's helpful is if you can get the GPs to buy stuff that is on the Christmas list. As you say, little kids don't really notice who bought what gift - you provide the real magic by keeping it all hidden and working out how to do the big reveal. I also agree with the suggestion of setting up a savings account - my dad did this for all his grandchildren. He was a man who wanted to spoil them, but didn't like the idea of frittering his hard-earned cash away on stuff - he was basically a a saver rather than a spender, I'm not sure spenders would get any pleasure from this, but maybe you could do the saving and leave the GPs to splash the cash.

Lillian -That's a nice way of looking at it. I'll try to focus on creating the magic, rather than plonking it all under the tree and waiting for the inevitable overwhelming free for all.

DC are 3 and 1, so we're still figuring out how best to manage Xmas morning. If anyone's got any tips and would like to share, I'd love to hear them!

All I can think about it the waste of money and the amount of stuff that will be sent to landfill because the majority of time it is just plastic tat.

My ds' dad would ask me what he wanted for Christmas, I would give him a specific thing such as a certain car or action figure or book but he never bought the thing DS wanted. He would buy something similar but a cheaper version and then buy a whole of tat aswell. DS was always disappointed because he wasn't interested in the cheap thing or the tat. That probably sounds ungrateful but isn't it better to actually buy what the child wants and will be happy with rather than spend a fortune on stuff that will be forgotten about in a couple of days.

@Squashpocket I’m not saying this to make you feel bad but my DD has just lost her last grandparent that bothered with her. This year she’ll get zero gifts from grandparents and her sense of loneliness about it is breaking my heart. So please, whilst the day to day of it may seem irritating, step back and be so very happy that your children have GP’s that love them enough to spoil them rotten. It really is a blessing that won’t always be there. Merry Christmas

My parents are like this. Loads and loads of gifts. To be fair there’s usually only one ‘tat’ present per year (talking minion thing that spins round very noisy —it may have broken— )

MIL on the other hand with transfer £30 and leave it at that. She’s never bought a gift for any of her grandchildren (eldest now 20)

Say if 10 well meaning relatives gave my kids 3/4 gifts each, I regift 1 present from each person to the salvation army Christmas appeal. That's 10 gifts that could go to a child in need, my kids would still have 30 odd gifts. Just 10 will be redirected at source to somewhere in need.

I'm a nan.

I always ask what my grandkids would like and then buy them that, but I also go over the top with clothes, Christmas pjs, sweets, games etc. I bloody love spoiling them! Same as my grandparents when I was very small, and I think back on Christmas and smile at the daft things my nan bought us.

Just spread them over a few days if you feel it's too much. Appreciate that they have grandparents who love them

My MIL does this too, I've had to bite my tongue every Christmas for years as although it bothers me, DS is her only grandchild and a more recently a lot of the people she would have bought for have died. So she has much fewer people to lavish presents on. I have to cut her a bit of slack for this reason but it's annoying that she tends to buy tons of rubbishy things and also doesn't usually know the kinds of things DS actually likes, or can't buy them for him because they're online only kind of products (like apps).

I always think in these circumstances, if you can get the gifters to buy one or two actual presents and put the value of the balance in a savings account, you win all round. Unfortunately some people just won't be guided in these things, however tactfully you frame it. MIL just likes buying stuff for DS and like PP, it's impractical or inappropriate items, like keyrings, paper diaries (she gets those for all of us, but why give diaries and keyrings to children..?!)

We used to buy DNiece and DNephew one nice present for Christmas then felt stingy when another relative turned up one Christmas day with three or four gifts for each child. There has been dark mutterings about this person, as kids tend to see quantity as being better than quality and she makes us all look bad and feel like we have to do the same (although we don't, that way spirals into madness).

If I were you OP I'd quietly open those presents carefully, see what they are and select the better ones for giving to your dc on Christmas day. Put the other ones away for giving out at a later date. Your children are still very young and mountains of presents on one day is likely to overwhelm them.

This year my mum has bought Premium Bonds for her GC, but I think she has also bought a single gift so they still have something to unwrap. They are all older than yours and have reached the hideous ages of being hard to buy for. Enjoy the relative ease of buying presents for your kids' age group, those are the halcyon days believe me...

I think it depends if you've ever spoken to her about wanting to lower expectations and avoid the kids being spoilt at christmas. I've had conversations like that with my mum and if you'd made it clear it was important to you and she'd ignored your wishes, I would find this very annoying.

If you haven't though, this is definitely a situation where you do really need to remind yourself to be grateful for how much she's put into it.

@DukeChatsworth this will be my first Christmas without my Dad. He was always very generous and doted in my dc, so there will be fewer presents under the Xmas tree this year. I still don't equate mountains of stuff with love. One wanted, well-chosen present is enough imo.