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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As the daughter of a woman who could be your MIL:

My mother has gone through this with my brother and SIL (I've posted about it here before).  It's been an ugly, ugly 13 years (my nephew's age, which is when this started) and it blew up this year.  My SIL gave away a dollhouse my mother had painstakingly outfitted for my two nieces and my mother went ballistic and there's irreparable damage. There are two sides to every story, of course, and my SIL insists that the girls just didn't like the dollhouse and that their pregnant teacher would love it for her soon-to-be-baby girl.  Unfortunately, this followed situations such as when my SIL made my brother return all the Christmas gifts my mother had given their three children:  he came over and got the receipts and returned several hours later and gave my mother back the money.  Unlike your MIL, my parents aren't in financial distress but like you, my SIL and brother just couldn't deal with the clutter.  Now (and please don't take offense) my whole family is dealing with a much more serious kind of clutter-- emotional stuff that you can't throw, give, or put away, unfortunately.

I am sure you will get all kinds of feedback on this, and I really don't have the right answer for you, except to ask you if it's really worth alienating your MIL over all this.  Can't you share the food at work or with friends if you really can't use it or if it's just too much junk food?  For the clothes, can you ask her to store them until your next trip since they're bigger than your DC needs?

I know that you're worried about her spending unnecessarily but you're not going to be able to control that (and if she's like my mother, she may be going to thrift shops and Goodwill, etc.).

There is NO good answer here but I would hate to see you in a situation such as my family confronts now where there is so much tension that you can cut knives in the room.  [b]You can't control or change your MIL[/b] but you can control your own actions and I honestly think that it'll be less painful for you to swallow really, really hard and accept some of this rather than to confront.

Good luck:  I know it's hard.
[/quote]

But as an adult, OP sure can express that there is too much coming into her household and they don't have room for it. After hearing the message over and over isn't there any responsibility on the MIL's part to be respectful of what another adult is telling her about the situation? You're assuming MIL is some kind of unbending child who cannot or will not understand that others are inconvenienced by her excessive gift giving. I say OP should have a discussion with MIL and have faith that she is able to handle hearing that it's too much.

So if SIL went to the extremes of returning all of the Christmas gifts, why would your mom painstakingly furnish a dollhouse for the nieces? Sounds like she wasn't getting the message. Did she even suggest to your brother and wife that she was planning this? I'm not saying she should have to under normal circumstances, but there was a track record here of rejected gifts.[/quote]

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