MIL has stolen my childhood christmas decorations!

[ExhaustedPigeon37]

Hello all,

Bit of a strange one but I think my MIL has stolen my Christmas Decorations!!

They have been in my family since I was small and although they aren’t expensive, nothing special they are just sentimental to me.

We had these three decorations, saying Joy, Noel and Ho Ho Ho with a Santa head on the top. The letters cascade downwards and the Santa has a loop so that you can hang them up. This year I put our decorations up and only found the Joy one. Asked DH and he said he hadn’t seen them, so I only put the Joy one up thinking I’d come across them in another box, I never did.

Fast forward to yesterday when we went over to theirs and they live about an hour away so we stayed for dinner and catch up after DH finished work. MIL was showing us her new decorations and the tree (which is themed red and white). I happened to glance at the bottom of the tree where I saw THE/MY Noel and Ho Ho Ho decorations hanging off of her tree!!! I’ve never seen these decorations at their house before, so the only conclusion I can come to is that they are mine, which is why I couldn’t find them this year!

Asked DH and he said he didn’t notice, asked if he remembers us giving them to her or anything and he said can’t at all. Last year we moved house in

I’m so shocked. What do I do? Do I ask for them back? Do I just leave it? Do I sneak them out when we next go there? DH wanted to stay at home on Boxing Day but I now want to go there to retrieve my decorations (they have been invited on Christmas Day but declined due to the journey and FIL recently having had a knee replacement).

Why do people always suggest lying?

Anyway, it sounds as if the poor woman has dementia, which is just dreadful.

PM sent - check the notes in your profile at the top of the screen. Santa Noel waiting to go in an envelope.

Definitely steal them back!

Is there any chance they could have fallen into their gift bags from the window ledge etc? Surely if she stole them because she liked them, she wouldn't blatently put them on her tree for you to see?!

I can imagine this being a thing that she found them after getting home, put them to one side to give you back, or maybe they got put with their own decorations when taking down and then got put the them up this year thinking they were theirs?

I'd either steal them back and not say anything, or give her an out, say you've been looking for them everywhere as they are the ones from your childhood and ask if they fell in her bag last year?

Maybe not new but I've picked up some fabulous vintage baubles in charity shops, including identical ones to things I've seen & admired on other people's trees, MIL doesn't need to be either a thief or on ebay/ etsy to get hold of retro stuff.
OTH, I've definitely seen & considered buying hanging "ho ho ho" felt decos in bargain shops within the last couple of years.

But are those the EXACT same ones OP has, and not something that looks broadly similar? Cause someone else insistent on this, posted links to items that didn’t actually match up!

If the exact same item is no longer available, then it is obvious MIL has them. You don’t need to be a police officer to work that out, surely it is a straight line that a lost, niche old item turning up at a relative’s house is the same item.

Perfect!

Neither of us know what the "ho ho ho"ones look like, & as I said, I've obtained from charity shops identical vintage ornaments to some I've admired on other people's trees. In any case, 80s & 90s fashions have been back for a while, there would be nothing surprising about manufacturers relaunching old designs.

I’ve never seen them anywhere, at anyone’s house either (I was around in the 90s).

This.

Don't ask. Only you and her will know.

Oh cop on!!

Are you really trying to suggest that in the same festive season that two specific ornaments are missing from the OP's decorations, and the two absolutely identical ornaments appear on the MIL's tree, is just a coincidence?! Especially as MIL spent three days at the OP's house with her not there last year with two ornaments easily noticed/accessed and the other one not?

Are you honestly suggesting the MIL spent the last 12 months scouring the charity shop's and just happened to find two of the three at the same time that the other two just happened to get lost?

Think about that for second!

Buy some similar ones, burn them with a match or something, sneak into their home and rescue your two. Replace with the burnt ones. Sit an elf underneath the area with a book of matches. Sneak out & go home and hang yours back up in their rightful places maybe stitch your initals on the back of them?
Then hope you don't find the originals packed away and realize twas all for naught.

😁

Yes i agree. Steal them back. That way if shes done it deliberately she won t say anything. And if they got there by mistake and she mentions them you can just pretend they were round yours all the time.

OP herself has said they are the same though. Her decorations since childhood, on MIL tree.

So I’m not sure what the point of your interjections are if she’s confirmed the issue.

Yeah, no.

No, it doesn’t. Have you read all the OP’s posts? The MIL sounds like a nasty piece of work, has a history of making the OP feel that she doesn’t belong in the family and she told her granddaughter (the child of OP and this woman’s son) ‘I’m not your nanny, don’t call me nanny’.

MIL said this to my DD only, in front of DH DD’s, they we offered a drink, DSDs both said yes please nanny and then DD copied and got told “don’t call me nanny, I’m not your nanny”

That seems the strongest answer to me. Poor woman. You all have a long road ahead. Enjoy this Christmas with her.

Read OP’s update. If she has dementia (and it certainly sounds like it) all of this is going to go by the wayside. None of that is going to matter because she will start to forget it all. She is moving into a new stage of life and will seem like a different person.

Late to the thread.... I have the exact same decorations which were bought in BHS, I can't actually remember when but it must have been late 80's or early 90's. I would just ask her where she bought them and how long she had had them.

This post reminds me of an ex and his behaviour. He was self employed in a niche building related craft that hardly anyone does any more (so as not to be outing).

His job meant that he would be working on peoples homes, theoretically from dawn til dusk, when they were home and when they were not and I noticed that his relationship with his clients would start out well. He would chat to them, find out all sorts of stuff about them and would be enthusiastic about them in the evenings when he came home but......he would start having time off, the work would be delayed and this behaviour would eventually piss the client off.

Gradually, as the relationship broke down (and it always did) he would start to slag them off but instead of apologising and doing the work as contracted, he would start to steal from them and/or make their lives difficult in petty ways.

Once I had lived with him for a year or so, I could predict all of this, I was horrified by some of his antics and I left for this and a hundred other reasons.

@ExhaustedPigeon37 Your MIL might be a bit like this bloke. This was just a petty revenge thing because, like him, she hasn't the spine to tell you to your face how she feels about you but by stealing from you in a petty way, she feels better about herself.

I once worked with a boss who stole something from my office. I was his rsearch assistant and we had keys to one anothers rooms. It had nothing to do with work and was secreted away in my filing cabinet. He must have gone poking around to find it. i stole it back and also took something of his. He never asked me about it or remarked on its going missing. im sure he noticed.

What were the items?

Absolutely this. It's very tough, and absolutely devastating for families.