This thirty-eight-year-old woman and her husband, who is forty-one, have just one child together. But, whenever they celebrate Christmas with her in-laws, things get pretty chaotic since her husband’s family is quite large.
In fact, there are ten adults who have seven children altogether– which makes gift-giving a really expensive responsibility.
So, in an effort to cut down on the expenses, she and her in-laws normally participate in Secret Santa. Or, they give one gift per each sibling’s family.
Well, this year, that tradition is going to change– and she is pretty pissed off about it.
Apparently, one of her husband’s siblings proposed that each couple should buy one small gift for all of the other couples. The real kicker, though, is that the children are supposed to be totally left out of the gift exchange.
And to her shock, all of her husband’s siblings were on board. They claimed that the kids had enough stuff already.
But she is obviously a mom and does not want to exclude her child from the festivities. So, she suggested that if the family wants to cut down on gifts, perhaps they only give presents to the children rather than the adults.
“We are all really blessed with everything we need, and the kids are still really young, and Christmas is really exciting for them,” she explained.
“And my partner agrees since the family grew up wealthy and experienced great Christmas celebrations as kids.”
Anna – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual people
To her shock, though, her husband’s siblings and her mother-in-law claimed that the new gift-giving expectation had already been decided. To be honest, though, she refused to let that be the standard for her own nuclear family.
So, she ended up telling her husband’s whole side of the family that if they planned on spending money on her family this holiday season, they should direct it toward her child and not her or her partner.
Well, her request was not taken well, and it actually pushed her in-laws to come up with a somewhat bizarre idea.
The “compromise” they suggested was that the adults would get real presents; meanwhile, the kids would get old toys wrapped up to appear like new presents– since, apparently, her in-laws believed the children would not know any better.
“But the kids are not babies. They will know,” she said.
So finally, her sister-in-law ended up claiming that this Christmas, gifts should be scrapped altogether.
Then, the same sister-in-law said it was “out of the spirit of Christmas” to expect gifts for their kids anyway.
Anyway, it was ultimately decided by her husband’s family that “people will get presents for whoever the heck they want,” and it was insinuated that this lack of coordination was due to her selfishness.
And ever since then, most of her in-laws have opted to just buy expensive bottles of alcohol as gifts– so that way, the kids are excluded by default.
Plus, her in-laws even said that anyone who feels their child “deserves” a present should talk to family members separately rather than communicating via the family email thread.
And quite frankly, this entire situation has made her really upset about how all of the children– not just her child– will be experiencing this Christmas.
“I truly don’t want my kid or any of my nieces and nephews watching adults open presents and have nothing themselves,” she vented.
Still, though, she is not sure if her own beliefs are justified, and she has been left wondering if wanting the kids to get presents on Christmas is such a bad thing.
Do you think it is fair for her to want the children to get presents on Christmas? Why do you think her in-laws are so dead set on only giving presents to the adults rather than the kids? If you were in her shoes, would you feel the same way about this situation? How would you handle it?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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