Help my inlaws have taken over christmas

[vanillaredbushtea]

Hear me out please. They are lovely. They love their grandchildren. However...

They've taken over Christmas. They've bought an advent calendar and given it to the kids on the 5th of December as if they wouldn't already have one! But theirs is bigger and better than ours.

They've given us "a few bits" for the stocking and I'm going to need a sack to give them all! Plus we had already bought stuff. What do I do?! I feel like they are taking away OUR job as parents. It's me isn't it I'm so ungrateful I know! How do I stop this!

They've only gone and bought 5 of the items on the Christmas list for the youngest leaving us with what.. some colouring pens.

As others have said I think the multiple advent calendars are fairly normal - my mum has always given the DC a paper advent each.

On the extra stocking gifts could you suggest giving them as a small Boxing Day box? We never had Xmas eve boxes but always got a small box from my grandmother on Boxing Day with some stocking type little gifts in ( I’m now actually wondering if it was to deal with this issue!) and a book. It worked well as made the comedown from Xmas day a little easier as a small child, as it’s the day after it doesn’t take away from Xmas day and we knew it was from the grandparents ( mine were so small was in a cardboard box my grandmother wrapped).

It’s actually one of my main Xmas memories!

Donate the unwanted ones - or take them back to the shops and get refunds to donate or credit note for next year.

I'm going to keep them for next year and if they haven't gone as birthday gifts then I'll be finding an operation shoe box style thing

I used get an advent calendar from my grandparents - I loved it!!

I don’t understand why you give suggestions to them for presents you want to buy yourselves? I don’t know anyone who does this? I usually say, we’ve got them ‘X’, could you get something along the lines of ‘Y’.

I think in some cases refusing to take unwanted gifts is the only way even if it is cruel. The rule about receiving gratefully was all well and good in the days before there was large amounts of cheap tat so readily available but not all gift giving is appropriate now.

Dgs has Christmas here so he gets up at home and has his stocking and presents from his dm and then he comes here and has family presents and after lunch he has a second stocking because we do stockings after lunch as we did them then to enocourage the dc to stay at the table when they were tots and they never wanted that to change. Dd sends out suggestions for presents and we double check with her that what we buy hasn't been bought by someone else. Dgs just thinks he is very lucky that Father Christmas sends presents to both houses. FWIW dgs had four advent calendars, dd gets to see him open them all,she is of the opinion that the more people who love dgs the better and those that love him are likely to want to give him gifts.

We have a rule, gifts are from us, stocking stuff comes from Santa. Santa doesn't leave multiple stockings in various locations, it's one per child... tell them it's ruining the illusion!

He does in this house. The stepchildren get one at both houses.

Don't do this unless you don't want a relationship with them anymore.

Embrace it op. I used to feel like you. But now my dc are 14 and 10 I have finally realised that Christmas is much much cheaper if you embrace the inlaw generosity

Absolutely. And the stress and time taken to buy and wrap.

It does make me smile on here, it is nearly always the MIL that oversteps, not very often the DM…

And yet, we are the same person….

It does make me smile on here, it is nearly always the MIL that oversteps, not very often the DM…

And yet, we are the same person….

It's generally mums who organise Christmas. Mum's 'know' how their family do Christmas. They also feel more able to talk to their own mums.

There is a comfort level in the discussion -
Granny : I'll get Lucy her scooter.
Mum : No mum we are getting the scooter.
Its a clear cut conversion.

It's a bit more difficult when the conversation is second hand.
DH : Mum said shes getting Lucy her scooter.
Me : Can you say No?
DH : No I've already said "Yes" and shes order it.

Hence mums end up looking for help one here. Quite a few times MIL has whipped my best ideas then bought something not quite right, skateboard miles too small, scooter miles too big.