MIL gave children gifts from a homeless charity for christmas!

[Jellyworms]

Thats it really, just a bit taken aback!

MIL is a strange one at the best of times, always expects but never wants to give. She didnt get my children (her first and only grandchildren aged 2 and 4) anything last year but asked my dh why we didnt gift her anything. Anyway, fast forward to this christmas.

she came over for christmas day with two big paper bags full of toys for both my children, i was shocked as the only thing shes ever brought them is a pair of socks.. children both started opening said gifts when my dd bought me over a piece of paper that was inside to read im assuming thinking it was a christmas card.
i started reading and to my absoloute horror it said “merry christmas from community assosiation” then at the bottom had a box ticked boy x girl x age and packed by x x x

i was absoloutley shocked, didnt make a thing of it until she had left later in the evening when i bought it up to dh. He completley didnt understand the situation and brushed it off.

googled the charity and its a homeless charity for children and adults facing homelessness and fleeing abuse (none of which she is!) no idea how on earth shes wrangled this but im absoloutley seething with anger at her for being so selfish taking from vulnerable children, lying and also not giving two hoots about her grandchildren that she cant even purchase them a gift.
the gifts were gorgeous and worth id say £60 per child easily that people have clearly bought to donate in good will.

What would you do? Do i confront her? Do i tell the chairty?

That's a separate issue to whether or not she is getting food from a Foodbank.

Well the thread is about her and the presents she got from a charity. The comment I was responding to was the one where it was said that she sounded like she hates her MIL

Obviously getting the presents from a charity for vulnerable children was wrong but some details don't seem right, like the foodbank.

The OP said that it's one that you can just turn up to without a referral - that might not be the norm but there are foodbanks that don't require them

There's no large foodbank presence in my home town - no large named ones and there are projects that call themselves foodbanks that don't require a referral

There's also a mobile one in the next town where people self refer

@Jellyworms - "Because im sick of her behaviour and constantly asking for things yet giving my children nothing. Christmas is not about giving to recieve but when she sends us a list of things she wants for her birthday in the family group chat but cannot spend even £5 on my children no absoloutley not gifting her anything"

Sorry but you seem to be trying to hold two contradictory positions simultaneously there.

Either Christmas is not about giving to receive or it is.

You can't just say it's not about giving to receive and then say you aren't going to give because your kids didn't receive.

You also seem to imply from your original post that your MiL must have obtained these toys dishinestly from the charity. How do you know she didn't just buy them from the charity, or was given them in return for a donation? How do you "know"?

All you "know" is what is written on a scrap of paper. You know nothing else.

I think it’s blatantly obvious I am not!

If a charity is collecting presents for vulnerable people who are homeless or fleeing violence - members of the public don't take these presents for a donation nor do they get handed them. You are expected to give presents, not take them - the charity hands them out to people in need

They are matched to people who need them

It's highly likely that the MIL has managed to convince this charity that her DIL is either homeless or fleeing violence

On the foodbank issue - I work mainly for Trussell where referrals are tightly monitored (although if you turn up at a hub in need they might well give you some pasta and a jar of sauce and a few other bits to tide you over whilst we work on a referral). However during COVID I spent time working with a number of community organisations that gave out food which didn't need referrals from places where anyone could turn up for a meal to places where suplus donated food was redistributed.

I'm not going to speculate on how this MIL gets food or presents - there are various ways some more legitimate than others. However I do think it is important that the DH here has a conversation with his mother. A number of scenarios could be pertinent that don't involve her defrauding a charity.

1. She is struggling as she is in debt
2. She is struggling because one of the DC living wiht her is indebt and leaning on her to help with it and or is otherwise potentially financially abusing her
3. She is struggling due to COL as none of the adults living with her are contributing and that needs to be addressed.

All it took me was a few questions over the phone with an advisor. They would even give you a voucher if you had some savings at the time. That was 5 years ago. It’s even easier now you can just walk in without a referral.

Or tight and doesn't want to spend a penny as the OP said in her first post -do we automatically have to assume that the OP is being abused financially by her adult kids or that one of them is in debt and she's bailing them out?

And even if the any of the first three things were happening - it still does not justify taking 120 pounds worth of gifts that were meant for someone who was either homeless or fleeing domestic violence. The OP does not fall into either of these categories and someone bought these presents in good faith thinking they were going to be given to someone in real need

Well quite - but as those points have been hammered home ad nauseam on this thread I thought I'd try and apply a bit of balance.

This sounds like the gifting tree that Dunelm do. My daughter took part this year. You take a tag off the tree and it says something like ''a gift for a 10 year old girl who likes crafting". You then buy the gift, wrap it,put the tag back on it and put it in donation bins in the shop.
You don't think she helped herself out of the donation bin do you?😬 She could easily add your children's names....

The Trussell Trust foodbanks need referrals (I'm a referrer), but many others do not.

If @Jellyworms's DH doesn't understand what the problem is, then maybe it is not at all surprising that his Mother doesn't either? I would be much more annoyed and upset with my DH, if he didn't understand just how
unacceptable it was for his DM to do that.

So I don't understand why you @boogietrapps would cut all contact with his DM if you were the OP, but not also leave your DH? I could never have lived with.- or in fact, loved a partner, if he thought there was nothing wrong with fox hunting (or any hunting, or culling), and I would fall out of love very quickly if he, like the OP's DH, couldn't understand why what his own DM did, was so wrong!

I am more inclined to think that it is a misunderstanding, which can happen when you jump to conclusions - we’ve all done it, haven’t we?

Food banks normally need referrals made

In theory this is true, in reality a lot of them will not actually turn anyone away and will give smaller "emergency" parcels to pretty well anyone who turns up and says they need it.

I agree! Everyone needs to know exactly what shes doing! Not doing anything about the behaviour is effectively condoning her actions. Makes me furious that people think this sort of behaviour is ok (MIL not OP). Unless she has serious consequences from her actions, she will continue to get her 'freebies'

This is awful. I have a somewhat similar relation. He uses a church community pantry and has taken food and clothing. He also goes to a soup kitchen place regularly (
offering of another religious group) .
He is financially comfortable- no mortgage, regular holidays. But feels that it makes great financial sense to get stuff for free if you can! It’s so embarrassing and unkind. I cannot get my head round it.

I think it's very clear that these gifts were meant for vulnerable people -, the way the tags were written. The MIL didn't buy them herself by the sounds of it.

The presents don't have anything to do with the foodbank. They were donated to a charity to be given to kids of homeless people or people fleeing violence. Do people really think that someone who didn't give their grandkids a present at all last year is suddenly going to donate to buy 120 pounds worth of gifts this year?

If that actually were the case then why not just say so? If there were a surplus of gifts that were donated and they were either given to the MIL or she was asked to make a donation why not just say that?

Obviously different depending on who's running them

I made a similar post a couple nights ago! I work for a toy company and every year so arrange for a bunch of toys to be donated to a women’s shelter my mom works at. My kids keep getting gifted these toys and I don’t know how I can explain to her that it’s wrong regardless of the shelters rules around staff having access to donations.

I have no advice but can totally sympathise with your situation. Some
people are just unbelievable.

She's fraudulently obtained items meant for vulnerable families! Obtaining of items via deception. The charity will be furious and hopefully ban her.

Was the card accidentally dropped in the bag? Was the bag from the shop with it already in there? ...maybe?

I'd be so angry. That's disgusting.

What an awful thing ! I would make a monetary donation to the charity to compensate. Don't take the gifts away from the children, they aren't involved in it and shouldn't be made aware.

But op is not, and her kids did not need these gifts because they weren’t going to get anything else, which is the whole purpose of the exercise.
The intention certainly isn’t for people who can't afford to give gifts to have the cost taken care of, when the recipient isn’t in actual need.