Who is being unreasonable - MIL at Christmas

[beth1991]

Hi all
To cut a long story short my MIL is a maternal narcissist (just to put some context around my feelings about her!) my husband also isn't her biggest fan and has purposely rota'd himself on to work some days over Christmas to have an excuse not to see her 🙈

We live about 1hr 15 away from her and have a little girl who has just turned 2. Last year we hosted Christmas, she came down for the day with other family and some of my family also came for dinner. This year we just want to spend it at home just us 3, no exceptions.

She has insisted that she see us on the 27th December and gives our daughter her presents then. I am not ungrateful at all for anything our daughter receives but this has really annoyed me as it's from her completely selfish point of view that she wants to see her open them not that it may confuse our daughters concept of Christmas. I do understand that she's want to see her open them but with my daughter maybe not fully understanding Christmas but starting to, that way she's not going to think nannas presents were delivered by Santa.

Birthdays are obviously different, I have told my husband that it's not going to happen which he agrees. Opinions on do you think we're being unreasonable especially because of my opinion of her. Or do you think I'm being a complete cow and we should allow this for one more year? X

YABU . Of course you should go on 27th .
If you bring your daughter up to think that Santa brings every present she will expect that she can everything she wants . She should know that gifts come from other people so that she can thank them and appreciate them .
At 2 she won’t have a clue about any of it but will do in a couple of years .

You know you are BU 🤷‍♀️. So much so, that you are making yourself sound mean, actually.

And as for the 'narcissist' comment...I suggest you read up about this and reign in your fireside mental health diagnosis. This term is thrown around on here, and on other social media, like candy on Halloween, and it's really not helpful. If you do ever have the misfortune to have to live with a real, diagnosed, narcissist, you'd be less inclined to be so casual about using this term I can assure you!

Be kind.

Why would anyone in their right mind buy a present, wrap it , and then take it to Santa to deliver when he has the whole world to get around? Especially when that person will be seeing the child later anyway? Mad. Talk about gift miles!

Good for your DH working over the hols - I am too. (Healthcare)

Sorry- you’re being completely bonkers on this subject.She may be a terrible person, but not on this particular occasion.

And there is nothing selfish about wanting to watch a child open a present you’ve given them.

Just to be clear here, you've diagnosed your Mil as a narcissist, obviously you must be from the medical profession so your diagnosis is spot on. Or, is it more likely that you just don't like her.
Now you don't want your daughter to know that she's been given presents by her Narc DGM.
You prefer the presents to arrive via a fat male stranger in a red suit.
I don't think that you're a very nice person
YBVVU

YAB ridiculous! The selfish person here is you. Your MIL has respected your decision to not come xmas day yet you want to take from her the joy of watching her grandchild open her present/s?

It takes a fair bit for me to take the PIL's side of an argument but you are so very wrong and it is ridiculous for you to say that this will confuse your daughter. If it's so confusing then let them come xmas day - confusion avoided!

YABVU.

There is absolutely nothing selfish about your MIL wanting to see her grandchild open the gifts she has bought, that’s part of the joy of gift giving.

The only selfish people here are you & your DH trying to play Santa with someone else’s money. Buy your own bloody gifts from Santa.

@GoFiguire now now, op can use any fairy story she likes
Op, might be easier to unclench and go with the flow a bit

Relationship wtih your MiL is neither here nor there.

A 2 yr old won't even remember which day the presents were opened a week later, let alone where they came from!

Yabu

You're creating a rod for your own back if you do Santa this way

In this house Santa just delivers stuff in the stocking. Everything else is given by the relation who brought it to the intended

Also it's not unheard of to get Christmas presents on nye and Santa is definitely back in Lapland by then

So how does Santa collect all these presents that other people in the family have bought? I assume this is your first child. Mine are teens, everyone who does Christmas differently opens themselves up to all these questions, not just from the child but from their friends. How do you tell Santa the budget of what you can spend? How do you contact him? Can I contact him? When does he collect the presents? How does he do this?

We do a stocking from FC (yes, even now with teens, it is tradition) then everything else under the tree is from us. Everyone else hands their present to our children and they know that X toys/gift came from Grandma or Auntie such and such.

Reading these comments, our house is clearly different to everyone else haha! In our house all the presents come from Santa, including those from grandparents. We have 10 yr old autistic twins and this kind of black and white simplistic approach works really well for us

My sister had all her presents come from Santa, cue my child saying why does Auntie buy a gift for me but she doesn't buy a gift for her own children?

Also why on earth does your daughter need to think everything came from Santa? Our kids get a small present from Santa, everything else is addressed from the person who gave them to them. Believe it or not they still love xmas.

Yabu I’m afraid!

Get a grip you are both being TOTAL unreasonable. His mother can do what she likes with her gifts it's not for you to dictate. You sound worse than her to be honest.

Oh and remember that your dd will soon be giving her own presents to people- how will you manage your vision of Santa with that, and answering the question “I made those delicious [mud coloured] jam tarts for Granny - why disnMt age give me anything?”

YAB SO U! So you want a Christmas just the three of you (fine) but you also don't want you MIL to see her grandchild after Christmas on the 27th (not even Boxing Day!) to give her her presents and get the joy of watching her open the. That is really mean spirited.
And confusing a two year olds idea of Christmas!? Just what? Surely she is learning to be thankful for gifts and who they come from. Ie. thank Nanna for the lovely Christmas presents..

All your 2yo is likely to think is that her Granny has bought her some presents. No deep ponderings about Santa.
Everyone does Santa differently yet children still believe. That's part of the magic.

YABU
You are having the Christmas Day you want just the 3 of you. It’s not selfish of MIL to want to see her granddaughter open the present she has bought for her. She isn’t Argos or Amazon who just has things delivered to your house. You don’t like the woman and that’s fair enough but unless you are NC with her I don’t think what she’s asking to do is unreasonable. At 2 your DD will only have a very sketchy idea as to the ways of Santa and getting a present on the 27th from her grandma isn’t going to ruin her understanding of Christmas presents for ever more.

Remember OP one day you will probably be a MIL .social media is doing its best to fuck families up imho
How did christmas happen when you were little ?

Well now I've read everything. Is this a troll?

My kids got stockings from Santa and one 'Santa gift'. It's absolutely reasonable for people who love the child and buy gifts for them, to have that gift acknowledged. And in the case of grandparents, where possible, to see the kids face when they open it.

Your MIL is respecting your Christmas alone, for goodness sake give her some pleasure in the Christmas aftermath

Oh op you are definitely bu I’m afraid to say and very pfb. At that age they won’t have a clue what’s going on it’s all just very exciting.

If my ds tod me I had to give my nieces and nephews presents to her for Santa to deliver I’d be very

Let your mil have a bit of joy in seeing her dgc open her presents.

Yabu not MIL.

Santa has enought to do, when did he become Royal Mail as well??

If you must insist on this nonsense it's only going to get harder. Friends give her presents at nursery, freak out. She goes a to Christmas party, disaster. Family want to see her open them, world ends. She's two. You could say Santa left some at granny's if it's really such an issue.

I think by now you know what I’m going to say. You are being so unreasonable!!!!
In my house santa brought everything from me, I didn’t mind santa getting all the credit & if I was asked why I didn’t get them anything I told them it was because I knew santa brought them enough & they can’t be greedy.
If anyone else gave them a present it was most definitely from the giver & in most cases opened in front of the giver even if this meant it was opened either before or after Christmas. It meant that the kids weren’t just opening everything in one frenzy on Christmas Day & of course giver got to see their gift being opened & got to be thanked politely by my children in person.
Now my kids are adults so obviously know who the santa stuff comes from (and are always amazed at how I kept the secret for so many years lol) but we still do it this way.
Christ you’re being very precious. I suspect it’s not the MIL who is the problem.

Think of another excuse if you really can’t stand to see this woman. The Santa excuse is a bit pathetic.

I am not ungrateful at all for anything our daughter receives but this has really annoyed me as it's from her completely selfish point of view that she wants to see her open them not that it may confuse our daughters concept of Christmas. I do understand that she's want to see her open them but with my daughter maybe not fully understanding Christmas but starting to, that way she's not going to think nannas presents were delivered by Santa.

You sound very ungrateful and it's not your MIL being selfish and narcissistic, it's you and DH. I hate this mealy mouthed 'my ickle preshus child must think all presents are from an old white man' crap.

have told my husband that it's not going to happen which he agrees.

Amd just how are you going to achieve this? Are you going to turn up at her door and wrestle the presents from her? Or are you going to bully her? I really hope she gets your family nothing.

Opinions on do you think we're being unreasonable especially because of my opinion of her. Or do you think I'm being a complete cow and we should allow this for one more year? X

Yes, you're being a complete cow. and why the bloody kiss at the end