Was she being unreasonable or smart?

[Shouldputcheeseonit]

Totally lighthearted, sharing for lighthearted opinions!
Spent Christmas Day At MILs with DH, BIL, SIL and our kids. In the afternoon when the kids opened their chocolates we asked them to offer them around, MIL had a box out too, and DH opened his.
SIL took one every time she was offered but didn’t eat them, put them in her handbag. I’d estimate by the end of the day she had about 15 chocolates in there! I felt amused, but DH and MIL had a rant about it after SIL and BIL had left, saying you shouldn’t take a choc unless you intend to eat it.
Was she being unreasonable or is it rather smart to save them for later, if you don’t fancy them now? I reckon she would have had a nice pre-bed snack!
Yes: she was unreasonable, only take if you’re going to eat
No: what a good idea, save them for later!

CF! If they were literally chocolates to be shared out, you count them into piles and hand them over. Otherwise, you’re not being offered a chocolate, you’re being invited to share an experience .. we eat and drink together for social bonding!

How weird

It’s incredibly rude. one chocolate could be understandable, but not multiple ones.

Where do you draw the line? “Oh, I don’t really want to drink today so I’ll just take one of these bottles of wine...”? Nobody would consider that ok so why is it just because it’s chocolate?

Yes stockpiling is weird and not something I have seen before.

I wonder what else is in that handbag? A quart of gin? Wrapping paper to reuse next year? A pilfered present? She sounds like a great character from a book. Is the bag Mary Poppins carpet bag size? Please describe it!

I remember being unlucky enough to catch a bit of one of those old phone-in draw-you-in-and-rip-you-off gameshows they used to have late at night on ITV. To win the jackpot, you had to identify the item they were thinking of and the clue was that it was 'something you'd keep in a handbag'. Nobody got it - unsurprisingly, really, as their answer was 'rawl plugs' ?!?!?!?!?

15 chocolates would be a lot if they were, say, Ferrero Rocher, but not if they were Maltesers or even Mini Heroes or the like. It's one of those things where you don't realise just how many you're eating when you take and eat them one at a time, but if you have your whole consumption for the session there together and visible at a glance in one pile, you'd be appalled. Like having 'just a small glass of wine' - but doing it 8 times in one evening.

@viques you can have my address! They are my faves, I'll swap you for the coconut and weird blue brownie ones

I admire her quite frankly. I enjoy chocolate much more when I eat it alone for some reason.
It's the kind of thing I'd have done as a child if I could get away with it but probably wouldn't now.

Good for her I say.

I would never take a chocolate from a child and keep it for later - how greedy!

Off topic but I'm just jealous she doesn't have chocolate at home. DH went completely overboard and I can't get rid of ours.

it seems odd to me, if it was one or two then okay but 15 would make me wonder if she had some sort of issue with food or eating round other people.

I would like to think I had a good enough relationship with my SIL to laugh and ask her what her plans were for the chocolates. I think the seething and moaning about it behind her back after she'd gone is far worse tbh.

Surely she was just being polite. If a child is being polite and offering you something then it’s kind to accept it even if you don’t really want it.

I think that’s odd behaviour.

If you don’t want to eat it straight away, you say something at the time. Ie. Thank the recipient, and then say you’ll eat it it later. However, you only do that once, or maybe twice at most, then decline future offerings. To take fifteen is rude.

To be honest, if I wasn’t going to eat the the chocolate straight away, I would decline it at the point of offering, especially if you knew the chocolate was from someone’s gift, rather than a general shared box.

Sounds like you had one heck of a lot of chocolates for one day if everyone had their own box, all opened them and passed them round. Blimey. Was there any room for proper food?

I wouldn't worry about what sister in law did though hoarding chocolates does seem a bit childish.

i wouldnt take 15 off others and put them away maybe one or two

15 chocolates would be a lot if they were, say, Ferrero Rocher, but not if they were Maltesers or even Mini Heroes or the like

Trying to imagine someone shoving maltetsers in their bag 😂

Greedy

I do that but then I was abandoned at birth and brought up by a family of squirrels.

PS The hazel nut ones are my favourite.

Perhaps if the children were offering, she didn't want to refuse?

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

I do that but then I was abandoned at birth and brought up by a family of squirrels.

PS The hazel nut ones are my favourite.

She took the chocs from children!!

That’s not ok at all imo

This is utterly brilliant so very wrong and embarrassing but brilliant

@Whatisthisfuckery

What I would find odd is being offered a chocolate with the condition that I eat it immediately in front of the offerer. That would be bloody weird to me.

What I would find really odd, and incredibly rude and nasty, is accepting a proffered chocolate, then being the subject of scorn and ridicule behind my back because I failed to comply with some unspoken condition placed upon accepting said chocolate, then finding that someone had started a thread about it on MN. I would find that fucking mental.

What I would consider very reasonable and in no way odd is accepting a proffered sweet with the intention of enjoying it later when I fancied it.

This 👆🏾

• What I would find odd is being offered a chocolate with the condition that I eat it immediately in front of the offerer. That would be bloody weird to me.

What I would find really odd, and incredibly rude and nasty, is accepting a proffered chocolate, then being the subject of scorn and ridicule behind my back because I failed to comply with some unspoken condition placed upon accepting said chocolate, then finding that someone had started a thread about it on MN. I would find that fucking mental. What I would consider very reasonable and in no way odd is accepting a proffered sweet with the intention of enjoying it later when I fancied it*

Do you feel the same about other foodstuffs? Do you do the same with sandwiches, biscuits, cakes etc? Do you know of other people, when at a social gathering if food is passed round, who take it and put it in their handbags or pockets?