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 can’t see why you’d exchange gifts and not open them… of course they want to see the kids open their presents. I wouldn’t do a whole massive traditional Christmas meal though, too much effort twice over.

I don't get it really as we don't spend Christmas day with my family often and always have a second one if we don't. On top of that my kids alternate Christmases between me and there Dad's so there is no one day. I think the more Christmases you can get in the more fun it is.

If agree to either your compromise before Xmas or their day after Xmas. Tell the kids father Christmas knew they were away and came back. But agree with you RE taking the shine off.

If they want to replicate Christmas, why don't they do it after they are back which is presumably sometime between Christmas and New Year? Also, if you don't spend every Christmas with them anyway, are you sure they mean doing full-on Santa, etc. Seems strange to insist on this if they might not even experience that on years when they are in the UK!

You just call it granny and granddad's Christmas party, so long as no one says anything about father Christmas having been what's the problem? They get some gifts from grandparents and say thank you to the people who bought them, and eat a turkey roast. They will have christmas dinners at nursery/school etc it's no different

Honestly, my instinctive reaction’s that there’s no way I’d arrange a second, earlier Christmas Day.
If little kids were not involved then of course it’d be grand, but as it stands I feel it’s a very great shame to dilute the day in this fashion, creating a duplicate.
If their brief years of wonder and excitement are worth cherishing and protecting, then showing them the ‘magic’ can happen at other times as well seems counterproductive. (I am taking it as read the OP always has a fairly trad Christmas Day, given the reason for the post)

All this ignores the actual story of Christmas of course.
Assuming any minority cultural tradition would have been mentioned, it’s a fair bet the children will know about the Bethlehem story (without any godliness attaching, to be sure!). Just the shepherds, manger, angels, donkey, and a tiny baby. Maybe the odd kingly wise man too!
This story can’t reasonably take place twice in one Winter, nor little Baby J have two birthdays, both celebrated with a day of gifts and festivities and special food.

Cannot the grandparents give the children mere tokens on their November visit, main presents hidden in the cupboard for Dec 25, and the family day be a wonderful celebration of Winter, maybe?
Decorate the house with greenery and holly, kids helping, light candles, drink hot Ribena/wine by the fire, watch The Snowman, etc, etc.

I am astonished at myself by the strength of my feelings here! I’d not have expected to want Christmas Day for little children to be well protected.
Put it down to advanced age.

Surely what they're suggesting is a bit like a communal birthday? I don't think your DC will be confused by exchanging and opening gifts and I'm always happy to eat a Christmas dinner! Putting up decorations early will be fun too. I would not do Santa Claus but that's my only hard line.

That’s very sensible.

They are very unreasonable. They knew when Christmas was going to be but booked their holiday anyway. Tough.
Your way is very accommodating, too much imo. We never did tree and panto so early so I would refuse even this (and the answer would be the same if it was my parents)
Christmas would be a very busy period anyway so I wouldn’t want extra hassle.

Do it but say it's not Father Christmas presents, we're having GP presents and dinner as they'll be away. It doesn't have to be a drama.

We've always had more than one 'christmas', could you do January instead rather than November. As January you could explain grandma and grandad were away for Christmas so want to celebrate with you now they are back. We do Christmas mid January with in-laws and we love knowing there's still a Christmas to go. We used to do early December with my parents and that would be stocking etc. kids take things in their stride.

Sorry I’ve had a lot of replies, didn’t expect this many in July when I’m talking about Christmas.

Just to clarify they actually mean to replicate Christmas morning, so they’d stay the night before (which they would do when they’re visiting anyway) tell the kids it’s Christmas the next day, exchange gifts, make/have a Christmas dinner, play games eat chocolates, watch a film together.

When I’ve dug little deeper asking why they need to do that and why we can’t just have a Christmassy day, my MIL says that Christmas in Canada will be a more simple affair, they won’t do a full dinner, they’re not doing gifts as there’s too many of them travelling/meeting up.

They are against a January Christmas, and I don’t totally disagree with them as they don’t think many people will be in the mood and won’t want to keep decorations up for that long.

Although they are not with us/our children every year they are usually with one of their children/grandchildren so they do feel like they’re “missing out”.

With regards to its their own problem as they booked the cruise. It’s not that simple the cruise was planned for their 50th anniversary but my father-in-law was unwell on the initial date Jan 2024, and with insurance/availability/routes Dec 2026 was the best compromise.

The whole gifts are/aren’t from Father Christmas, it’s a little bit more complicated. My husband’s family raised him and his siblings with the belief that Father Christmas is just a story and that gifts always come from their parents, so I just don’t think they see waking up and giving the kids gifts on Christmas morning as confusing at their young age. They fully support us saying Father Christmas is “real” and wouldn’t ruin the magic, but I think we have such different views they can’t see where I’m coming from about not spoiling the “magic”

How old are the children? Could you explain it's an extra Christmas Day because GPs won't be there for the day Santa will be coming? I assume you will be keeping your presents for the real Christmas.

Twelfth Night! A huge festival abroad, even has an important figure in a Santa-type rôle (and here in Ireland, it is literally a second Christmas Day, especially for women)

They knew it was Xmas when they booked the holiday.

They want you to go to a shitload of work and pretense so they can have what they freely chose to give up. They want to have their cake, the holiday over Xmas, and eat it too, have Xmas with your kids. That's not how it works.

I wouldn't indulge this shit at all. They can bring gifts over before or after their trip, but it's not freaking Xmas. They made their choice, they live with the consequences of that choice.

We did Fake Christmas twice for travelling relatives. DS was 5 first time and took to calling it "Grannys Christmas". The rest of us just said Fake Christmas. There were no stockings or Santa or night before activities though. That is madness.
Edit to add we did a full Fake Christmas dinner. Christmas is food in our house.

How old are your children? Why not open the PIL gifts when they are with you?

We travel abroad for Christmas, so when our DC were little we always had two Christmases - one in the UK with local family and bulky presents, and one abroad with other family and Father Christmas presents (that would fit on the plane).

They were never confused and the real Christmas Day was always special.

Your compromise sounds ideal.
I would let them give the DC their gifts early though so they can watch them opening them, DC will have loads to open Christmas morning anyway.
It would be a “granny and grandpa won’t be here for Christmas so you’re getting your presents early” though rather than full on recreate Christmas morning, and the gifts wouldn’t be from Father Christmas because that’s too confusing

Just to clarify they actually mean to replicate Christmas morning, so they’d stay the night before (which they would do when they’re visiting anyway) tell the kids it’s Christmas the next day, exchange gifts, make/have a Christmas dinner, play games eat chocolates, watch a film together.

So no Father Christmas; no stockings; no leaving plate of food out for Santa; no Christmas tree.

Correct @WarmHare ? All the things that actually mark Christmas to young children

To be honest I don't see much wrong with this

It'll just be presents from the people who are there won't it. So the people who are there can see the others opening the presents they've given.

It's just opening presents and having a lovely meal. Which happens to be a Christmas dinner (roast dinner). You yourself don't have to say 'we're having Christmas tomorrow' as you put it. You can say we're opening presents from them and have a Christmas meal or whatever you want to say.

I mean Santa won't be coming then anyway will he. So it'll hardly be like actual Christmas

When I’ve dug little deeper asking why they need to do that and why we can’t just have a Christmassy day, my MIL says that Christmas in Canada will be a more simple affair, they won’t do a full dinner, they’re not doing gifts as there’s too many of them travelling/meeting up.
That's their decision, to have a small and less important Christmas whilst travelling abroad.

Although they are not with us/our children every year they are usually with one of their children/grandchildren so they do feel like they’re “missing out”.
It was their choice of dates. As they're not there every year - what do they do on those years? Do they "miss out" completely or do you facetime them?

I wouldn't go along with this. It's too much and too early.

Just to clarify they actually mean to replicate Christmas morning, so they’d stay the night before (which they would do when they’re visiting anyway) tell the kids it’s Christmas the next day, exchange gifts, make/have a Christmas dinner, play games eat chocolates, watch a film together.

The ONLY weird thing is “tell the kids is Christmas the next day” and I doubt they will and if they do… you look at the kids and say “Grampa is winding you up. Look, no Christmas tree, no stockings, no plate out of food for Santa’s”. End of discussion

Maybe as DH thinks it's such a great idea, he can do all the prep, present buying, cooking,. house prep, cleaning etc.
And he can then explain it to the little ones what is happening and why.

I genuinely can't see the issue. They are not intending to "do" Father Christmas, which is the only thing that is really confined to Christmas Day. You simply tell your children it's an extra special Christmas Day just for Granny and Grandad. A bit like celebrating their birthday on multiple occasions because you have one party for their friends and one for each set of grandparents?

Totally agree.

Even having read the latest update