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.

They can make special memories after Christmas on their return?
Why take shine of Christmas?

They want to have their cake and eat it. Their choice to be away for Christmas so tough, they miss it.
Your compromise sounds generous.

Just what I was going to say.

I would do this OP. Tell your DCs it's a pretend Christmas day for nanna and grandad and make it into a bit of a game for them. I agree that pretending it's Christmas day in November could be confusing for your DC, and if they mention it at nursery or school they'll be told they are wrong by their friends and teachers / nursery staff.

🍪

Absolutely this

Did they not consider they'd miss Christmas if they went away, er over Christmas? Why have you to then change your plans? Bloody bonkers for me. You go on holiday over Christmas then you miss Christmas. That's the deal surely? So many main character red flags here OP. You do you with your lovely kids. They did them when they booked their holiday.

I've swung round to YABU, sorry OP (I originally voted YANBU!). You sound like a very kind person and your in laws sound lovely as well.

• I think even tiny children can understand a message like 'This isn't real Christmas, this is Early Christmas for Gma and Gpa this year. We'll still have real Christmas next month.'
• I have on several occasions cooked two Xmas dinners owing to two sets of relatives visiting or whatever. If the in laws are willing to help, and it sounds like they are, then it needn't be excruciating. They may even be fine with curry - just include Xmas crackers and it will be fine.
• Have everyone help put up the Xmas tree on the evening they arrive.
• Exchange presents on fake Xmas morning with the in laws and open them - it's not a performance! Grandparents love to see this joy when grandchildren are tiny. Enjoy the day, but keep it a bit down scale from normal Xmas and presents are only to and from the grandparents.
• Father Christmas will NOT be visiting - no stockings, no main present from FC or whatever your tradition. This is non-negotiable.
• Head out to the Pantomime in the afternoon.
• Hope it goes well!

Your compromise is fine but I think they should be allowed to give gifts, especially to the children.

It’s a bit off topic but I like “voluntold”. I may use it.

That would be a firm No from me. Too confusing for very young children and to be honest too demanding from your in-laws. They have chosen to be thousands of miles away on Christmas Day, so really should be adult enough to live with the consequences.

If my 4yo can get confused between actual Birthday and actual Christmas how can people be absolutely convinced that another 4yo won't be confused between a pretend Christmas and actual Christmas?

We also have zero idea of what other celebrations the families may have in the December period.

Keep in mind some kids barely get their head round Christmas until 4 anyway.

It’s very normal to do more than one Xmas day or ‘fake Xmas’ with in laws and coparenting families. You can tell your children it’s a fun pretend Christmas. Or you can say Santa is doing an early extra visit. This is MORE fun and love and joy for your kids it doesn’t take anything away from your special day with them. You’re being selfish in my opinion.

Growing up we always had two Christmases- my grandparents lived away and as we got older my parents didn't want to travel on Christmas Eve, so we had a family Christmas with the five of us then travelled to see grandparents on around the 29th, where we would have a second Christmas with the saved presents, another Christmas dinner and a pantomime visit. Never gave it a second thought- we had presents from Father Christmas on Christmas Day but it was equally exciting to receive a second round of presents and see our grandparents. We have continued the tradition with my children, it takes a lot of pressure off Christmas day itself and means that the children aren't overwhelmed with a mountain of presents all at once.

It's all about how you pitch it to the children, they will still be excited regardless of who delivers them. It's lovely that they have grandparents around who want to share and celebrate with them, don't push it away.

I would expect some help with the food though!!

If you won’t compromise on Santa, maybe they can do the elf and the elf can bring a first of December present?

See that's after not before Christmas I'd be happy to do something after but not before.

I’d be fine with them coming to stop, decorating the tree and doing a Christmas activity. I’d also be fine with exchanging gifts . I would not be fine with two visits from Father Christmas this year! I’d just say doing it early will ruin the excitement on actual Xmas day , it’s not about them it’s about their grandchildren.

We did 'the start of Christmas season / advent celebration' once with our very young dgc (we were going to be in Australia with our adult son and his family for Christmas (they live there)).

We did a family tree decorating and switching on of the lights with Christmas music and mince pies - very exciting for all of us as we'd usually do our own Christmas decorating thing.

It was fine. dgc were very excited that we had an advent party to celebrate the start of December, and advent presents, and and advent dinner - although tbh I don't think kids that young associate turkey, pigs in blankets and roast potatoes with Christmas, they possibly have that kind of roast dinner several times a year.

We exchanged advent / start of December presents. There was no confusion with Christmas. We didn't say we were doing Christmas early, it was a different seasonal event.

One month for young kids is a long time. I doubt they would wake up on Christmas morning and think "but we did all this present and turkey dinner stuff 4 weeks ago". They cope with Father Christmas at nursery / school events without becoming confused.

That year was much better than the one where dgc had school Christmas dinner, an early Christmas with one set of dgp, Christmas day with the separated other dgp, and then a few days later with us. "Granny, please do not give us turkey again" was their plea

I agree. I hard no'd but gently, if there was an expectation that all the effort was going to land on the OP but as I and others have said, LOADS of families have extra christmasses or move christmas for loads of reasons and it doesn't confuse the children or damage them for life. So for the third time I will ask the OP what her real issue with it is?

Yes, that's a good question - what is the crux of the issue for OP?
I mean, I must admit, I can get a bit control freaky at Xmas, especially when the children were young and you want things to be perfect for them. But it would be useful if OP could identify what the real issue is?

The thing is, Christmas is for everyone, not just for very young children. I know adults who are absolutely appalled when a small deviation from whatever happened at Christmas when they were children is suggested.

It may be that the OP really likes Christmas, is happy to go with her suggested plan and is downhearted about telling her children that 29 November is also “Christmas”. I can understand that.

4 year olds get confused a lot. It's part of growing up and learning about the world. I assume your 4 year old survived the birthday and Christmas confusion without lasting damage?

I honestly don't understand all this hand wringing. Op sounds lovely. The in laws sound lovely. What is the need to punish them unless you really have to. So what if they want to eat their cake and have it too? Isn't it nice you can make this happen for someone without actually having to put yourself out a lot? Best case the kids will love having two Christmases. Worst case they might be slightly confused about why they are having two Christmases but don't think it's too difficult to say that the first Christmas is just a pretend one to make granny and grandpa happy and have a lovely time with them.

I think your ILs are putting themselves before you and more importantly your children at Christmas. Surely Christmas is about children. It will distract from the big day itself. Your idea of decorating the tree, curry, panto etc sounds wonderful.
They can give the grandkids their presents and they can receive theirs but save your presents for the big day itself.
I have grandchildren and if we suggested this to our children they would quite rightly decline in no uncertain terms.
My husband and I may go away at Christmas someday but we will accept that nobody is going to rearrange their Christmas for us, neither would we want them to.

But isn't that exCtly what they are going to do with the grandparent special edition Xmas? If they are insisting that you give your presents or the presents from father Christmas to the kids in November as well then I change my mind. That would be too much to expect. I thought they just wanted to give the kids and you their presents.

I love the idea of putting up the tree the day they arrive and doing something christmassy, perhaps go out for a roast. And gifts given directly, literally handed over. It'll help with overwhelm on the day not to have so many to open. I'm sure you can keep yours if you want to.