Not buying my kids Christmas presents as other people spoil them !!!

[Infertilitylady]

anyways ! I have a 2 and 5 year old , every Christmas I tell my mother in law to calm down with Christmas presents , massive load of presents for the kids , I cannot stand it , she will not listen and wants to spoil them too much , very materialistic ! I don’t like it one bit , soo much clutter and nowhere to put them ! I am not ungreatful but I tried to say it in a nice way but she ignores my request . I don’t want my kids to be spoilt and they don’t need more than 2 presents each , but they get like 30+ from mother in law family . So this Christmas I am not buying even 1 present , let them buy it all then , because they don’t listen .sorry just a rant really . I’m not sorry I’m not buying my kids anything as I know they will get mountain of presents anyways ! X

ok then..

Everything that MIL buys lives at her house. Problem sorted.

This.

I think Christmas is over rated and kids get over spoilt and greedy , I’m not putting myself under pressure to buy more presents when they already get more than what I would be happy with !

I think you are having a Friday tea-time joke with us.

Go NC with the present buying family. It's the only way.

@Ibizabar I can’t go no contact as that would be out of order ! I’m still trying to make the day seem perfect for them and spend almost full day at MILS ,( because they make plans for my family ) I wouldn’t fall out just because of that it’s not reasonable thing to do .

Clearly it is ridiculous that they get 30+ from your in-laws! Personally I would be seriously considering telling her that any presents over a handful will be donated to charity ASAP.

However, I wouldn't let it stop me buying one or two carefully chosen gifts to give to my children, especially if your family tradition is for at least some gifts to come from individuals rather than from Father Christmas. Your 2 yr old won't know the difference, but your 5 yr old would know if you didn't get him anything. Plus, it's nice to choose something really lovely for them!

You can't have the in laws caring about your kids. It's not on. Cut them off.

What I do is try and grab two or three of the smaller presents and put them to one side when wrapping is off but before the gift packing is opened.
I say something like "ohhh so much stuff. Mil you are so generousssss let's keep some for another day as it's overwhelming"
I then hide it and regift it to other kids a month or two later. DH never remembers and MIL is too uptight to ask. Once or twice she tried to reference something and I said "it's here somewhere we just have so much stuff!!" And "oh yes we put the toys on rotation. its the done thing these days - it leads to more creative play apparently"

Yes of course you have no control over what you or your kids ever do. What happens in your house, how your days are planned.

Do what you want. Don’t buy any. Why the need to start a thread in Aibu if you have made your mind up.

actually sounds to me like you quite enjoy delegating everything to mil. Will make your life easier. But also like to moan about her.

Our kids only every got a handful of presents, plus properly small stocking gifts, and they were perfectly happy and love Christmas 2 seems a bit minimal though! Surely there is some happy medium between 2 and 30+

Does anyone else agree that this new generation seem to be so so materialistic and so spoilt ? I’d be happy to spend time with family and have a nice Christmas meal and that’s it . Money doesn’t buy love .

A satsuma and a piece of coal was good enough for mine.

You dont think MIL is spoiling them to overcompensate for your lack of err ..enthusiasm? maybe?

I feel your pain, my in laws are the same, utterly ridiculous piles and piles for everyone, lots of cheap stuff that’s not needed, just clutter, it drives me utterly insane.

If they want to spend the money fine but I’d rather they gave a couple of decent things than piles of tat ☹️

Everyone will say I’m an ungrateful bitch but I honestly don’t care, it’s unnecessary and I actually find it stressful.

😀

I agree, I’m so over the materialistic consumerism of it all.

But your MiL isn’t the new generation, so that doesn’t make sense? Just let her buy all the presents if it makes you happier. I don’t see what the big deal is. Just take the ones they don’t like to the charity shop.