Christmas family issues

[user1457118326]

Sorry to bring up the C word so early on. I wanted people's opinions on whether a certain thing my husband's family do on Christmas day is a bit weird. We have all the family round every year (no thanks, no contribution and no helping but that is a whole other thread!) there are a minimum of 11 of us in total. Everyone brings ALL of their presents from home. The house is already full of people and having all of the presents and the resulting rubbish drives me mad. We have dinner at 1PM and they are an hour's drive away, why can't they open them at home! Apologies if I sound a bit insane and mainly I am just venting

I love a bit of Christmas bustle, but it's got to work for you too. A couple of bags/bins/whatever out for people to gather their own wrapping as they go so it never gets too chaotic.

Christmas wrapping paper disposal does stress me out a bit... I do try and buy definitely recyclable paper and use paper/washi tape nowadays. But not everyone does. Some is non-recyclable paper. Some is recyclable paper with non recyclable sellotape on it. Some family members are "ball everything up and chuck it in the waste bin" types and others are "spend hours sorting it all and removing sellotape to put the right thing in the recycling" and both extremes are irritating! I want to recycle and as I say use recyclable wrap myself. But does anyone truly think there is some massive sorting facility to distinguish which scraps of paper among the nation's mountain of Christmas paper are legit or not - I can't imagine the required scale of that..!? What actually happens to it?

Ok clearly I need to chill out 😆 Sorry for that tangent. I hope you find a balance that works for you op.

It’s in the OP: We have all the family round every year (no thanks, no contribution and no helping but that is a whole other thread!)

Oh I see : I thought there was actually another thread.

They bring their presents from/for each other, or they also bring their presents from friends etc, to open at yours?

I have the extended family (similar number of people) to me at Christmas, and they bring the gifts for each other to open together, but have opened ones from non-attenders at their own homes. Maybe this could be a compromise request of it's not already the case?

I think it sounds really nice! Assuming they take their gifts home with them, is it the rubbish that's the problem? Can't they just take their rubbish too? Or is this more about no-one else helping more generally?

We open ours after dinner in the afternoon as well.

I think the bigger problem is that they aren't helping. Christmas is great fun, but there's someone behind it making it nice for everyone and it's not very fun being that person in my opinion if you're stretched too far. I'm happy to organise christmas until I start getting stressed over it. If I'm stressed then other people can step in and help. How is it fair for 1 person to slave away whilst everyone else gets to just sit back and enjoy Christmas?

So do you mean they all bring the presents they have brought for each other ? Then sit around pass them out and open them as a family?
Instead of just handing them out before Christmas day so that they can be opened by each person separately.

I dont think thats odd. Its nice .
Does it really make that much mess ?
Do you have kids ?
It will stop at somepoint naturally anyway. When people are to sick or old to travel and so on. Why not just embrace the happy chaos whist it happens. Especially if your dh loves hosting so much .

I don’t have a good poker face at all so I like opening presents away from the people who buy them . I’m not really a fan of presents either coz I’m a fussy , I would rather someone just not buy for me 🤣 so I don’t like the whole sharing presents thing and would prefer it to be happening at their own home ,

I was going to vote YABU to not let children bring their presents/toys to play with.
Then I read that most of them are adults! WTF? 😆🤦‍♀️ 😬
YANBU! 😨
I wouldn't host tbh.
I would have a nice quiet Xmas with just my own household. 😌

But as a compromise I would do an open house on boxing day instead maybe?

Well.you need to have a discussion. Because he loves it doesnt mean that its the expected thing that has become a habit that must always trump your wishes. You do have the right to say you want a change. A house full of guests and mess is not everybody's idea of fun. Sooner or later its going to get stressful and someone will snap. I think you have to lay down some rules, your house. Encourage people to not bring all their presents to keep things manageable and they should be responsible fot their mess by gathering it all up and taking it home to dispose of because you can only put two bags of recycling out. Also try and set a time for people to leave to preserve some space for yourselves to settle down, these events can go on too long and start to get awkward we all know from experience, speak to your OH and get him on board, just say you want to do things a bit differently as the family dynamic changes. You may find he agrees.