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?

Surely it means the kids will get a few things each rather than just one.

But that is an incredibly generous donation

I think it is relevant if they are ages where they wouldn't understand why presents are being returned- eg. preschool and young primary vs pre-teens/ teens
.

It’s quite a curious tale isn’t it 🤔.

Where I live, North East England, there were a few organisations/charities who were desperately trying to give away children's gifts on local fb pages, right up to Christmas eve. They kept posting saying 'we still have toys for...' then say boys and girls ages and ask for anyone who needed presents get in touch with them on messenger or let them know of anyone who could do with some help.

Basically, the bar is pretty low and supply exceeds demand for charities at Xmas.

I would be contacting the charity, explaining that these gifts had your children's names on them and that you feel that children in actual need have been deprived of these gifts and that you'd like them to check their processes as their charity had been defrauded.

As for MIL - I'd be telling her exactly how low I thought she was, and bugger the consequences.

Locally to me we used to have a shoebox charity appeal where you packed a shoebox with gifts for children and adults in need.

But it closed down a few years ago because they were inundated with scammers who pretended to be in need to steal or resell the gifts.

Ive been in 2 refuges. In the 2 we have been in, any wrapped presents were opened first by the refuge.

Any extra donations they get are then given to children who arrive at the refuge, often with nothing. They are also given to children when they get rehoused, often again they are rehomed with not a lot. When we were given our first flat we had air beds i had bought, donated clothes and toys my daughter had been given. No curtains, no flooring etc. So refuges help a lot with what they can.

That's crazy.

I'm put off by Christmas toy collections for various reasons, and things like that don't exactly fill me with confidence that my money couldn't be better spent.

The company who donated 2000 toys, thats a heck of a lot of stuff and must have cost thousands. I can't help think it would might have made more sense to talk to the charity and say we have say £10k to donate, whats the best way to do it, do kids need bikes, scooters, consoles or other bigger ticket items.
It must be hard for older kids and tweens who end up in shelters when the get what they are given rather than 1 or 2 things they really want.

But why didn't you buy her a present last year?

I’m really surprised to hear that. I’m also in the NE and manage such a scheme and we, alongside other charities such as Mission Christmas / Cash for Kids, have really struggled to maintain sufficient stocks this year. It’s not that people aren’t donating, they absolutely are, but so many families are struggling that demand is outstripping supply.

Gosh. Yea the childrens ages arent relevant but i usually see other posters stating ages so thought why not?
do you want me to upload a photo of the piece of paper and the packages? Wouls that make you happy?

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

Please don’t be put off donating to such a scheme, they are an absolute lifeline for some families who wouldn’t be able to provide even a basic Christmas for their children. If you are unsure of where the gifts go to, contact the charity and ask. The charity that I work for works on a professional referral basis only. I’m sure there are the occasional family who benefits from our Christmas appeal that doesn’t need it but the vast majority of families we support are living in deep poverty.

@TattiePants yup, they couldn't give it away round here...

I’m NW …I work in the community…we donated kids gifts every year…this year we got loads more than usual….still loads left over….tomorrow will be deciding what to do with the surplus

Think you need to talk to her about her behaviour - there's no point in talking just to this one specific charity - even if they 'barred' her from receiving such gifts next year, it wouldn't prevent her from picking up things from a different one. And for many community food projects & pantries you don't need an official 'referral'.

Noticed another poster earlier ( @CanadaGoose84 ) who's been suffering a very similar problem - but their mother is possibly even crazier than your MIL (as that OP works for the actual toy company that donates the stuff to the refuge in the first place):
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5466166-aibu-to-ask-my-mom-to-stop-gifting-our-kids-donated-toys

Are you in Canada, @Jellyworms?

Asking because there’s an almost identical situation on https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/5466166-aibu-to-ask-my-mom-to-stop-gifting-our-kids-donated-toys & I wondered if it was the same charity.

I wish they’d got in touch with us as we would have happily taken their excess stock off their hands and made sure it got to a family who genuinely needed it! As I posted up thread, it’s worth spending a couple of minutes investigating any charity that you are going to donate money (or gifts) to.

This is one of the reasons I don’t like giving to charities at Christmas as I am not convinced the toys are going to the right people. I gave food to the food bank but with toys and other gifts I just gave them directly to people I knew who were struggling either through my children’s school or through work. I can’t believe how cheap your mil is! Unbelievably tight!

If you have sufficient storage then keep the gifts for birthdays throughout the year or to give you a head start next Christmas. If not, then I’d highly recommend donating them to The Little Green Sock Project which is a baby bank based in Urmston, Manchester that support children throughout the year.

This is so odd. Why are there two threads at the exact same time about the exact same thing happening? The odds are astronomical, I would think, or is this a common thing that happens?! I’ve never heard of anyone doing this ever, and now two incidents posted in one evening.

I would assume she bought the gifts, that they were being sold in aid of the charity. There's nothing wrong with that.

That is definitely not what has happened I can assure you. The tags on each toy mentioning the child’s name & age is clear evidence of them being a donation

Agree, I used to work for a housing association and we were donated gifts by companies and charities to give out to people in need and often had piles of brand new toys etc to give away. People are often reluctant to take things as they felt insulted at being asked or saw us as another arm of social services and didn’t want to admit to struggling so it wasn’t as easy a task as you’d think.

I’d imagine she’s been approached at a social hub type place if she visits food banks and asked if she has grandchildren but there’s no fraud etc to report as there isn’t a strict criteria to meet and they won’t want the items back. They’re given in good faith to whoever expresses a need and she obviously has for whatever reason.

If you don't confront her she will do it again next year and any other time. Let her other children know about her selfishness.