Sending presents for children directly to your home before wrapping

[Luckymummyx3]

i have a wonderful friend who I’ve known for 15+ years. She’s one of my best friends. She now lives a good 4/5hrs away by car due to relocating. She always remembers to send my kids birthday presents/Christmas presents and I do the same for hers. However in the last year, she has started ordering them directly to be delivered to my home rather than ordering something and then wrapping and posting it. So now when I receive the item, in order for it to feel like a present for the child, I now have to wrap it. This really annoys me as I have enough of my own wrapping at birthdays and Christmas. If I’m honest, I’d rather she didn’t bother and just send a card. It kind of feels like just buying something for the sake of it, rather than for the child’s enjoyment? Or am I overthinking?AIBU? Do I say something and if so, how without sounding ungrateful?!

You are being ridiculous. And so are you @Weirdpig and @Luckymummyx3

Just use gift bags. I can't remember the last time I used wrapping paper.

I have a wardrobe shelf full of gift bags that get reused every Christmas. I even reuse the labels.

You can't say anything without sounding ungrateful, because you are ungrateful! YABVU.

Buy a gift bag. Put her gift in it every time.

Tell your child it's so nice this friend sends a gift every year.

You should say something so your friend understands that her expense and efforts aren't appreciated.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine getting worked up (and making a post on an anonymous forum) about the privilege of my kids receiving gifts from a friend.

YABU, but you are entirely within your rights to resent this few minutes of your time being taken up. Do your friend the favour and tell her no more gifts needed.

Don’t wrap them. Tell her you hope she doesn’t mind but you can’t be arsed to wrap them.

just let her known you don't want to exchange presents anymore, a card is enough.

We just gave the present in the original bag, packet, envelope whatever why on earth would we have wrapped it ourselves?

This is what my family do. I haven't asked them why but for me i specifically order it online direct to their house so I don't have to go out and buy it, wrap it, box it and take it to the post office. People have busy lives. Why would I expect you to do all that running around with your kids in tow when you can do it in 1 minute from the toilet.

The thought is in buying something you have thought about and that you think a person will like. It's not in putting it in some extra paper. I don't wrap them, kids love getting deliveries.

That's completely standard here. We just leave them in the post packaging. DC love getting presents in the post, and I'd never considered this something anyone could possibly be annoyed about. Its a present someone has selected and arranged to have delivered to my DC.

Like others have said, I use fabric gift bags for presents that arrive unwrapped. I have a small collection that I use every year. I buy them cheaply from places like home bargains and sometimes use pretty Christmas stockings as gift bags too

This is a little rude and certainly lazy,but much better than her not bothering.
I'd have a low key word with her.

The box IS the gift wrapping. Teach your child to be grateful for gifts. The wrapping is not important.

If you asked me not to send presents directly, I’d stop them sending them at all. Low key word indeed! 😂

I now do this for my teen neices, it is cheaper to send a present direct than buying and posting and being honest less hassle,

I get you think it lacks effort but at least your friend is remembering and sending something.

Either it goes under the tree in the original packaging or you stick it in a gift bag. Either option seems easy to me?

Alo just hand it over here. And I send direct to my friend's children as they are inAustralia and once after spending over £40 to post a trinket that cost me half that I don't do that anymore.

Many people do this for my child. Because obviously it's easier to send it that person's house on the first place. All my child's presents from her grandma and grandad and be aunties and uncles were sent to my house from Amazon or wherever they got the things from. No they were not wrapped.

Yes it's important to me for all the presents to be wrapped. So I wrap them myself before I give them to her.

But I don't see this as a big deal to be honest. It hadn't crossed my mind to be something to be annoyed at! So I think your attitude is selfish

You can’t because you ARE ungrateful. The very fact she even bothers to buy gifts and you can’t be arsed to wrap them! What an unpleasant and extremely ungrateful attitude.

I give my DC it in the box and they open it that way, they’ve never once complained about this approach. I send relatives gifts via Amazon every Christmas.

I do this but I pay for the amazon gift option. Its a nice reuseable gift bag with a tag ( you choose the wording. It costs about £3

I've just mentioned this to my daughter and she agrees the box is enough :-)

Thanks OP for this thread I've just saved myself a fortune.

It’s very nice of your friend to be kind and thoughtful. Either give as it’s packaged or put in a gift bag. No big deal.

i have kept a selection of those Amazon bags for this. When a gift arrives unwrapped I just pop it in one of those fabric bags. My siblings do similar so we can all save on postage/gift wrap.

YABVU and massively ungrateful.

Do you actually expect her to get it delivered to her home, wrap it and then post it again? Really?? 🙄

Same. They don’t care. Can’t imagine being annoyed at this when someone has taken the time and money to buy a gift for my children!

I get where you are coming from.

My kids aunts and uncles used to do this (kids are grown now so no more gifts). It used to give me the rage. Especially since I always wrapped ones before we sent, and it’s something I make sure I always do now for relatives who live far away.

But a friend who remembers your children year in and year out… I’d be grateful for such a lovely committed friend, and realise my rage was exhaustion and nothing more.

So now when I receive the item, in order for it to feel like a present for the child, I now have to wrap it. This really annoys me as I have enough of my own wrapping at birthdays and Christmas. If I’m honest, I’d rather she didn’t bother and just send a card. It kind of feels like just buying something for the sake of it, rather than for the child’s enjoyment? Or am I overthinking?AIBU? Do I say something and if so, how without sounding ungrateful?!

Yep, absolutely do say something. There’s no way it won’t sound ungrateful or completely batshit.

I’d wonder wtf you were doing and if you were mad. Surely the gift comes in a box? Give the box to the kid. They are generally securely taped so just cut the tape and lift it up at one end for them to start ‘unwrapping’. Let the kid get the gift out of the box. How is this hard? Why do you need to make it something it’s not by taking it out of the box itself ( a form of unwrapping) and then wrapping it so it can be unwrapped? Batshit. Do you hate this ‘friend’?

Contact them and tell them your problems and let us know their response.