Daughters 1st birthday present

[Spinningmom21]

So, we’ve had my 2nd daughter’s first birthday in October, low key at home with in laws. DH has a brother, wife and 2 kids a few years older than ours.we generally get on well but SIL doesn’t think much of the husbands family and is very much self absorbed and is always asking for expensive things with form to not return the kindness. For each of their children’s birthdays we make sure we got something they liked or wanted and spent about £40 on them (this is what we would normally spend). For my daughter’s birthday we offered out ideas for presents and left it up to each person to get what they wanted. BIL and SIL sent down a card and gift (as couldn’t make birthday). For my daughters first birthday they sent half a card, that is where they cut off the picture side of a standard birthday (not 1st birthday) card and wrote on that and sent some plastic xylophone tat. I was livid, husband was livid but in-laws made a fuss that it’s the though its that counts and to leave it. Husband sent a generic thank you text.
Roll on last week where it was SIL birthday and I purposefully sought out the exact same card they gave to my daughter and on the crease make a dotted line and drew a picture of small scissors. I wrote well wishes for her birthday and sent it.
It’s caused an uproar and I’ve been called to apologise and I’ve refused. AIBU

This is so easily done. my MIL also once put my DH’s name in my birthday card to me and wrote “From Aunty Brenda” (Brenda is her first name). She has no idea why she did it. I call her aunty Brenda now as a joke, I certainly didn’t take it seriously because I’m not a petty spineless humourless weirdo.

i hope you waited 3 months and did the same back then went “What what’s the problem” 🤣

Just to clarify. I didn’t care for the gift, it was tat, that’s fine. They always ask for what they want and we are happy to get said items. When we offered ideas they were ignored. SIL has form for this but never to this extent.
SIL always buys the gifts because she likes to control the spend, I know for people they ‘value’ nice gifts are bought as we are told how much she spend on such and such with the whole look what we’ve bought. Again, fine.
Mummy and daddy did not need to be consulted (and nor did I say that), they were there and were equally horrified at the lack of consideration of the card (and gift), they have a strained relationship with their son and SIL and just thought not to rock the boat.
I took offence to the lack of effort and thought to the card. Now, I’m not saying it’s not petty, and in hindsight not the best move, but as I am ‘over it’ I don’t see why I should apologise.

To clarify, we were livid with the card, I haven’t said I was expecting something extravagant for my daughter, but as we’ve always respected what they’ve wanted, you would think the courtesy is returned. My 1 year old wouldn’t know the difference between the xylophone or anything else, this is not my point. Going forward as some post have suggested we will just be exchanging cards.

You need to be mad at your BIL for making his wife to the work for his family.

Is there a reason you didn’t take the decision to ask them about the half card? What on earth possessed you to be so petty instead? Have you even bothered to ask the funny story behind it?

Good on you.

Hate when people send tat and expect you to honour their expensive gift wishes in return.

Actually yes we did bother to ask, they said they couldn’t remember. I think it was because I saw it as a lack of consideration even if it is just a card. To do the same back shouldn’t be an issue, if it’s good to give then it’s good to receive?

They can’t remember - weird you didn’t mention that earlier

Why didn’t you speak up at the time?

I think you need to get a real problem TBH. I can’t believe you’ve sat on this for 3 months and gone to such pains to get revenge rather than, I dunno, having a conversation like a normal human?

Sorry, we didn’t ask at the time we got the card. When they raised why they got the card they said there was a funny story behind theirs, we asked and they said they couldn’t remember.

I once put my husbands name on a card envelope for my (non-reading at the time) niece, I was chatting to him at the time and just did it on auto-pilot 😳. I’ve also had to steam open envelopes to check I’ve written the right names.

But why didn’t you say in October “Is there a reason you’ve sent half a card?”

Reading this thread just makes me happy that our family is so normal!

You sound incredibly immature.

What you did was just bizarre.

If you thought the card was strange at the time, why didn't you say something, or ask them about it at the time ?

A Xylophone is an excellent present for a one yr old. Indeed, the 1yr old's party I was at just before Christmas, the child had a xylophone given him and liked it a lot.

The card sounds so odd, that any normal adult would then ask the sender what it was about.

Your behavour, as a pp said, is completely unhinged.

Just casually brush it off OP. Tell them there was a funny story behind your dotted line, but you can’t quite remember what it was.

I agree! You have too much time on your hands op and not enough real problems

@Spinningmom21 You are too obvious! Just greatly reduce what you spend on them. Why send a petty card when you could buy a cheaper gift? Wake up here!

"Going forward as some post have suggested we will just be exchanging cards."

A whole one? Or half? 😂

I think what you did was hilarious. Petty, maybe, but hilarious. And sometimes people need to be called out on their rude behaviour. It seems obvious to me that they were too rude/lazy/cheap to buy a new card so they just grabbed a used one and cut off the writing. That is shitty behaviour.

what response did you expect ?

you’ve started a family rift now , why ?, were you bored

who cares if there gift to you is shabby and yours to them is lovely ? Is it really that important ?

can you agree going forward no presents as it’s another 18+ years of this shite!!

can you smooth it over saying you were trying to make a return joke but it’s been taken wrong way

only way to happy family is face to face apology and hear their “ funny story “
and btw I write it spell names wrong all the time in cards hence I have a stack of cheap one s I cupboard for that purpose

I would have been tempted to send your SIL some plastic hair bobs or similar along with the card 😂.

Essentially, you called them out on their cheap behaviour and made it clear what you thought of it, and they didn't like it. Yes, you could have been the bigger person but boo hoo. Sometimes it's fun to be petty.

This!

You are attaching too much emotion and importance / status in their gift giving and assuming they are rude ,
some people don’t see gift giving that way at all
and don’t use gift giving to convey a lot of status and just grab a gift and write a card

Oh and the men pull their finger out if their arses and buy gifts for their family!!

I think what you did with the card was hilarious. Clearly they couldn’t be bothered to buy your DD a new card and reused a second hand one. Unbelievably tight.

It is CF behaviour to request expensive gifts and give cheap tat in return. I’d either stop exchanging gifts altogether or match your spending to theirs from now on.

It's so obvious that there wasn't a funny story. The card thing is totally bizarre. It wasn't even a child's birthday card. You are probably correct that they just used an old card that they had received because they couldn't even be bothered to buy a 1st birthday card for your daughter.

This!!!

But you didn't send the same as you received. They sent the card cut, you sent the card with passive aggressive dotted line, after painstakingly huntingdown the same card. Really can't see letting a card get under my skin to that extent.

How older are her kids, when mine were in the early writing stage I would try to get them to write their names on cards with disastrous consequences sometimes. In the past I've had to glue paper over their attempts and rewrite, so maybe this was similar repair job if the other half of the card got ruined somehow.