AIBU to refuse a full early Christmas with young children?

[WarmHare]

My in-laws want to celebrate Christmas early (28th/29th of November) due to them going away throughout December.

They brought this up last weekend & we tentatively agreed, however it’s now clear that we all misunderstood what “celebrate” meant.

They are wanting to replicate Christmas Day, my issue is we have very young children, who very much believe in Father Christmas, therefore I don’t want two Christmases confusing them & our second actually real Christmas having the shine taken off.

I offered a compromise of them coming over for the weekend, helping the children decorate the tree, we’ll go to the Pantomime (they start mid November here) then we’ll give them their gifts & have a curry, they really want to give the children & us our gifts & recreate Christmas morning.

As to not drip feed, some context points

DH thinks we should let them replicate Christmas.

They're cruising the first three weeks of December then having Christmas week in Canada, this has been planned & booked for 2 years, its for their 50th wedding anniversary.

We don’t always spend Christmas Day together so we’re not breaking any traditions.

They are lovely people & don’t usually ask much of us, so the guilty side of me is feeling bad

My DH checked that the reason they are being so insistent about early gifts isn’t because they’re are for things before Christmas i.e concert tickets etc, they’re not planning anything like that

So am I being unreasonable & we should just let them completely replicate Christmas or am I not being unreasonable & my compromise seems fair.

I don't think they are insisting and of course the OP can say no. I just do wonder why the OP is so triggered by it given that she says she loves and gets on well with her IL's. The reasons that she has given......well I don't know.....

Your compromise sounds fine.
I don't see an issue with gift swapping or a roast but I'd do both at a carvery for lunch pre panto pending times.
And I'd call it Advent weekend and get a candle thing ready and leave Santa out of it entirely xx

Well unlike the real Christmas, you don’t get time off work to get your house straight again after visitors and a big event and meal.

but again, the OP hasn't said anything about "I can do it if"

Sorry for not replying to everyone, but just an update to some of the further replies.

I’m going to stick to my initial plan (tree up & panto) I’ll retreat on the not opening of gifts & the curry, the gifts will be fine, not really sure why I said we’d just exchange not open, the curry was with them in mind as we usually all meet up for one on the 22nd/23rd of December but given they won’t be having a traditional Christmas Dinner in Canada I’m happy to throw one together.

Re the cruise/Canada, as mentioned the cruise was moved due to illness over 18 months ago, which resulted in where they where embarking from changing, because of this they felt it was serendipitous as they were somewhat closer to Canada, my MIL hasn’t seen some of her family in 15 years.

I showed my husband the thread he would like to make it known to the ladies of MN that’s he’s the chef of the house, chief gift wrapper & the lackey when it comes to Christmas decorating (tree down/lights up man) 😂 so if we did (we’re not) do the fake Christmas he would be pulling his weight.

A few people are torn between YABU & YANBU based on the fact that my in-laws aren’t usually demanding & are truly lovely, I guess that’s why I posted on MN really as I do feel a tad guilty not indulging them.

I think I’ve sparked a bit of debate over when to tell children about FC, how gifts are given/labeled/opened & what makes Christmas magical, we currently go the whole hog, we do advents, FC visits, fake snow foot prints in the hallway etc, we say all the gifts Christmas morning are from FC… my DH did not grow up like this, and truthfully he’s not traumatised from it, so I really don’t think how you do Christmas is that big of a deal in the future but right now for us, we’ll do Christmassy days with friends & family but no fake Christmas’s.

we say all the gifts Christmas morning are from FC… my DH did not grow up like this, and truthfully he’s not traumatised from it,

I've only read your posts since I posted but you could start doing half and half. I grew up in a household where some gifts were from Santa (just a couple each) and the rest were from family and friends (and pets). Two Santa gifts seem more magical than twenty imo.

We had Christmas in July once for family members who live abroad. 4 children attended, all of Santa age, 3 below the age of 4. We did the full present exchange, full Christmas dinner, there were Christmas decorations up... there was no confusion with any of the kids. They just got on with it to be honest. I wouldn't be doing Santa presents but see absolutely no problem with the rest of it!

I think the point is, November isn't Christmas. Nobody is dying here. Nobody is knowingly facing their last Christmas and might not make it. No. A couple of grown ups have booked the entire month of December to travel and holiday elsewhere, including Christmas, but want a young family put themselves out to throw them an early Christmas on top of it because 'they' don't want to miss out. Not the young family missing out; the grown ups who made a choice to spend the holidays elsewhere.

it's really not the OP's problem to solve for them.

I think regardless of how nice they are - it’s super confusing for the kids. I think your compromise sounds good.

I'm easy going but I think this is a ridiculous idea. I cannot understand why your inlaws are so insistent that they must celebrate an early Christmas with your children, after all they've celebrated so many past Christmases that it's difficult to see why they can't miss this one. Your children on the other hand are exactly the right age to appreciate the magic of Christmas and a double Christmas would leave them confused. It's actually rather selfish of them. I would see it differently if the kids were teenagers.

My brother works offshore so is only home every other Christmas. We've done "Special Christmas' every Christmas since the kids were toddlers. Full on Christmas... Bucks fizz, open beef sandwiches, presents (but only to/from each other) and Christmas dinner. We do our traditional Christmas eve dinner the night before and our boxing day meal the next day.

The kids are 5,.8 & 9 now and they absolutely love it. They remember what they got at each Christmas and whether it was proper Christmas or special Christmas. It also makes it even easier to do the in-laws split.

I'd really recommend it, especially since you say they don't ask for much!!

My husband has also asked me to mention that he didn’t have a deprived childhood due to being told FC is just a story.

My in-laws both had careers working with children, they experienced seeing children after Christmas who didn’t understand “why didn’t Father Christmas bring me a bike but bought one for Sally who sits next to me” aka very young children don’t quiet get the social etiquette of not bragging & the unintentional outcome this can have on underprivileged children having an even shittier time.

Im not saying everyone should say FC isn’t real because of the above, because obviously we don’t, just some added context.

I think that one thing I'd want to keep a lid on would be the number of presents. Because seeing them open say, 1-3 each would be very different from ploughing through 5+ each.

My MIL nodded along in agreement when I said that opening presents ended up a bit of a chore on my son's November birthday, and said just one present from each was plenty - then they showed up with five from them, and multiples of gifts from all their friends.

I'm guessing one of them is under/around 2, which can be especially rough for present marathons. I'd ask if they can do just two each if they're prone to get loads, and save the rest for Christmas day.

I don't see why the OP needs to put a finger on precisely what's wrong with it - isn't no supposed to be a complete sentence? A Christmassy get together as suggested OP is fine if that's what she wants to host!

OP, I would be very wary of setting a precedent with this. I think it will very quickly become a burden because you’ll be expected to do it on subsequent years for different reasons no and it will be difficult to refuse.

Children already get overtired and fractious with one Christmas. Add another Christmas type celebration and they'll be bouncing off the walls. They don't sound old enough to be able to process what will be happening.

why can't they have a celebration when they get back from their cruise. Or better still make sure they're not away next Christmas.

I'm not sure if you were responding to my post or were making a general one. Santa never brought the big or expensive presents like bikes to my friends/us, they came from parents/grandparents. Santa brought the bratz dolls or scaletrix cars that went with the tracks the parents had bought. You did have to remember the present order if you did that though. Nothing sucks more than opening up a present of Sindy clothes before opening up the one containing the Sindy doll 😅

My childhood could be considered "deprived " as we had a lot of hand me downs, from clothes to shoes to pushbikes (two between six of us). We had a satsuma, a new colouring book and a handful of nuts in our stocking but Santa still brought us a couple of presents each, that Santa had popped down the chimney while leaving rudolph on the roof just brings that extra sparkle, and gave us the sense of being in the same secret gang as our friends. Adults were outside that magic gang as Santa never gave them anything. Yes you don't need it, it won't scar you, but you know.. why not?

Yes sorry, intended it to be an update…. Only my second post on MN so still learning the ropes.

MIL mentioned a potential January Christmas, however I politely shut that down, I like Christmas done & dusted by January 2nd, but in second thought that might be a better compromise with the children, at least they’ll get the real Christmas first.

That is a worry, we don’t have many boundaries as a family, happy to go with flow at Easter and other small celebrations throughout the year (I.e Mothers Day) as in we’d welcome celebrating them early/late if it meant we could all be together, but there’s just something in me that wants to keep Christmas Day.

I used to work shifts & have worked many Christmas days before children, so wondering if that’s impacting my want to keep it to the 25th….

I’m inclined to agree, if it was a case of one of them being unwell, moving permanently abroad or say the family in Canada were coming here to visit I’d happily shift things about… but doing it for what is in many an aspect a holiday kind of irritates me.

Ah, well I think you might have shot yourself in the foot a bit there.

They will have already done proper Christmas.
They will get a kick out of more toys.
You have a ready made excuse to have the decs down.
People will have feasted and be less fussed about a big meal.

I'd revert to the January idea - lots of countries still celebrate in January, and there's Twelfth Night etc. It doesn't have the 'ick' factor that a pre-Christmas does.

@WarmHare

You could have them round for lunch on January 6th if they are back in the UK, I suppose, OP, to celebrate Epiphany, when the Magi brought their gifts for the infant Jesus.

You could make a traditional Galette Des Rois.

www.nigella.com/recipes/galette-des-rois-domestic-goddess

Personally, I think a January catch-up with gifts sounds much more appealing

Why can't Granny wait until after Christmas to exchange gifts?
Why do it before and take the shine of Christmas.

LO did survive his Birthday/ Christmas confusion but it was shite having a kid confused and heart broken on their 4th birthday because they didn't quite understand Santa with hearts desire wasn't coming for another couple of days.

I'm years down the line, I've forgotten what the toys was he wanted. But I've never and will never forget him ignoring everything and breaking his heart cause he thought Santa let him down.

I too would reopen the January idea. It definitely makes more sense than a preChristmas day.

The gifts for all the DGC can all be under Granny's tree.