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 think for this year only, it's something to consider for the benefit of the children. Let's face it, that who Christmas is for.

Have all the excitement of Christmas, a bit of breathing space between Christmas and New Year and then an additional 'event' in early NY when GPs return. Back to normal next year. They are making it all about them, rather than what's right for their DGC.

can your DH do the diplomatic negotiations 🤭 as they are his DP?

If I had to choose one I'd go for the January. They will have had the real Christmas and it could potentially be less confusing.

No you are not being unreasonable at all. I think your compromise sounds lovely. If Christmas was that important to them, they shouldn’t have booked a 3 weeks cruise and a trip to Canada.

We did an early Christmas one year for my husbands Nanny as she lives a long way from us and tends to alternate who she spends Christmas with. She came up in November and we had dinner and my son opened his Christmas presents from her on that day, but no one else. We didn’t discuss Santa, didn’t have a Christmas dinner either. The only thing we did was Christmas crackers because my little boy was obsessed with them.

They can give you your gifts but they are just from them, your children are little so you wont have to worry about them being the age where they are starting to question father christmas, but christmas is special because it is once a year!

Your suggestion sounds great, a nice christmas themed weekend, putting the tree up, a pantomime etc, but I wouldnt be doing "christmas morning" as such. You can have some christmas food too, but you don't need to do a full christmas dinner.

I'm not very precious about Christmas, and I don't think kids will be overly confused by it if you deal with it breezily (let's be fair, they manage to overlook a lot of logical inconsistencies where Santa is concerned!), but I do think their request is OTT and unnecessary. They're not here at Christmas - they need to make peace with the fact that this means they won't celebrate Christmas with you all this year.

2 christmases sounds amazing. If you kids till believe in santa then they'll understand he can be flexible.

I would reopen a January 'Christmas with the grandparents' discussion and say they can have a special meal with grandparents when they come back and share presents with each other.

But actual Christmas will be taking place on Christmas as planned.

They chose to go away at that time. You have no problem with that, but you're not going to make it your problem if they're unhappy about it now.

Far too confusing for young children. What you are suggesting sounds much nicer .

Surely your in laws know kids talk and someone will break it to kids that Christmas hasn't yet happened. Not to mention Christmas in shops, other people, carols, etc. This isn't Truman's Show.

If you are very generous you can all pretend you travelled in time for an alternative day that happened to be Christmas. OTT but would work as an innocent lie.

Children are children and "believe" for such a short time nowadays, it's nice to try and keep the magic for as long as you can. Hopefully your husband can strike a good comprise with his parents so the magic can be kept.

We've always said that Father Christmas brings the presents in the stockings they wake up to in the morning; everything else (including presents under the tree) are presents we or other members of the family have given them and need to be thanked.

We've sometimes celebrated Christmas early if some of the family are away for Christmas - either on holiday or staying with in-laws for the Christmas break (not local) - and enjoyed it.

The grandchildren never were confused about Father Christmas. When they were older, grandparents gave the grand/kids the presents and said they were to open them on Christmas Day.

Just a thought - in some European Countries, children get a visit (and a present) from St Nicolas on 6th December ... depending on how young your children are, you could may be introduce an early St Nics Day as the grandparents present/treat. European kids still get presents at Christmas (including from Santa) and are not confused from an early visit from St Nicolas.

I mean, your compromise is fine, but I think you’re being a bit rigid and precious. Their idea is also a lovely one. My kids would have loved two Christmases!

We did this on the 1st December as my whole family were going away. We did everything apart from the father Christmas aspect. We had Christmas dinner, gifts from and to the family members that were away.

We then had our Christmas day as usual, with father Christmas bringing the stockings and 1 gift they ask him for, presents from us and the other side of the family.

My kids still talk about the year they had 2 Christmases.

I think some compromise is needed here, by them, that is, not you. They chose to go away at xmas.
I'd offer to have them over, even do Christmas dinner and allow them to give dc their gifts. But the 'pretending' it's christmas stuff, no. You can tell the kids the truth, grandparents are going on holiday over xmas and want to celebrate with us early. The kids won't get confused by that.
If the pils don't like it then they can accept that they're missing out this year.

Don't feel guilty, just celebrate Christmas early with them, but without Santa who, obviously, only delivers presents on Christmas Eve. Your compromise sounds good, enjoy it.

Oh i think this is really interesting in terms of dynamics. My children are a lot older then your wee ones so ive just asked their point of view over lunch, they have been raised in a house that tells children father Christmas is real and brings the stocking gifts when they were small. They love Christmas though. They think that if they were very little they would find it confusing to have 2 Christmas days as in my daughter's words, the lead up is very exciting, the night of Christmas eve is very exciting and it would take the shine off of everything the second time around. We have lots of festive traditions with letters to father Christmas sent up on the fire etc. So if we did it early, we really could not do it again. My son said, he would have started questioning why we could do it twice and might have started unravelling Christmas magic earlier then wanted. My 2 just love winter and Christmas though and I think thats because of what we do at that time of year. I think the compromise you have offered is absolutely lovely and could be the start of a new Christmas or festive get together (pushed back the following year) that they come to yours for putting up the tree etc. Panto, tree up, jumpers on and a curry, christmas film on. Gosh I love it. Perhaps offer instead of father Christmas gifts, tree presents to celebrate it going up. Add a hot chocolate and some gingerbread making, I'd be in my element.

Why not early Jan 27?

And have very young children gettting upset when all their friends have Christmas on the 25th December?

How odd?! If they want to spend Christmas morning with your grandkids then don't book a holiday where youll be away on Christmas day! Or you know, they just accept that they'll miss it this year but they can still spend time with their grandchildren before AND after.

It's a bit entitled of them I think And i agree with your rationale, Christmas is Christmas and its ok, cause there will be another next year! Depending on the ages of the kids, you say "young", so you've hopefully got a good a few years of the "magic" for them to share in, all being well!
I know tomorrow isn't guaranteed but this crow-barring "special" in so as to do it all is ridiculous. Christmas day is Christmas day is Christmas day - id like them to realise that that experiencing things authentically is in the kids best interests!

Can't you just say ' because Grandma and Grandad are going away at Christmas, Father Christmas has kindly agreed to visit us twice this year, so everyone can see you opening some presents'.

I see you have come to a decision but I wanted to throw my 2 cents in, for what it's worth...
I think that you have an opportunity to reinforce the message that Christmas is also about family and they can get excited about that and about Father Christmas coming. I wouldn't worry about it being confusing or taking the shine away from actual Christmas. Coming from somebody who's child has 2 each year and they are never confused and love both days equally for different reasons. I personally think you should enjoy an extra Christmas Day 🎄😊

I’d say they absolutely are. Christmas is Christmas and the magic comes from that. There isn’t another Christmas a month before the ‘real’ one. Or one in April just because you fancy it.

I’m in the firm ‘NO’ camp here. A nice wintery day out followed by panto and curry and limited gifts because Granny and Grandad are going away sounds perfect. No tree, no carols, no roast, no ‘Christmas Morning’.

And the truth from them about why they want this total recreation of a Christmas Day, including putting the kids to bed and telling them it will be happening next day etc, full roast, chocolates opening presents is so important to the grandparents.

I know there’s been an explanation but is there a chance that one of them is actually terminally ill and / or (I hate to say it) not planning on coming back alive from the cruise and they’re keeping it from you until after this fake Christmas?

@WarmHare i would tell your IL that Christmas is for the kids and that’s the prime motive behind pretty much everything. If they push for this, they are making Christmas all about themselves and that isn’t fair.

there are oh so very few years with the magic of Christmas for kids, and it’s less and less with the rise of social media etc. tell the IL that you want to preserve their Christmas as much as possible for as long as possible and while you realise they will miss the Christmas morning this year with the kids, but they’ve missed it before and will doubtless miss it again, so you’re not prepared to have Christmas in November. They can give you a token gift to save for them to open on Christmas Day, you can attend a panto etc, but no to the “it’s Christmas tomorrow” thing, no to Christmas lunch etc and you’re going to stick to your usual plan for decorating the house/tree etc.

they are making Christmas all about them. That’s not fair on your kids or you as a family.

While I get taking joy in the excitement of young children at Christmas it seems like so many extended family members want to do this sort of thing for their own benefit rather than because they actually want the kids to be happy. Sometimes it's a fine line but sometimes it's very obvious that's what's going on.

How can you possibly say a half a continent of very young children do not and never have been confused by both St Nics day and Christmas Day or been disappointed on St Nics Day because something has been held back for Christmas Day?

Not every child wants bundles of stuff sometimes they get fixated they want one specific thing and nothing else matters.