Anonymous wrote:Op here,
I prefer opening gifts beforehand on Christmas morning. We tell them to come over in the afternoon at Christmas hoping they opened their gifts already. It just awkward watching an almost 30 year old woman open 16 gifts from her parents.

I was asking how do you word it to have people open their gifts at their home and then come over later. I guess from now on we’d just have Christmas dinner.

I'm with you OP. My DH's family used to do this, and it was unbearable: one person opening one gift at a time, "aww you got me some gloves, how nice. Thank you" then the next and the next. A thousand small gifts, rounda and round and round the circle we go. I never said a word because I did not want to offend anyone, but somehow it stopped.

In my family(there are a million of us), you take your gifts home and open them there. Then you call aunt, grandma, uncle, cousin etc and thank them the day after Christmas or so.

I wouldn't say a thing in your shoes. But I feel you.

Sounds like you are jealous. Why not get up and do something else I til she is finished? So do the parents just see their daughter at your house? You should reevaluate whether you should.mardy into that.

While she's opening gifts, why don't you just go make hot chocolate for everyone. It should take you a while.

I get it though. My inlaws give wonderful gifts to their kids on Christmas (like 1k worth...they don't give gifts any other time of the year and don't really celebrate birthdays). I get a nice gifts, but it's maybe one or two things for $50. I don't want more, this isn't a complaint. But it takes a while. I just smile and play with whatever gift I got. Once we had kids, it was super easy to sit with the kids as they open and not pay any attention to the other gifts. Kids make Christmas more enjoyable!

It sounds like the real issue is SIL’s excessive number of presents. If this is the one part of Xmas where your fiancé’s family is seeing each other, then yea, I don’t know how you expect them to open presents another time? Are they supposed to get together with just SIL Xmas morning? Are they supposed to drop off your fiancé’s present early and you open it without then? It really doesn’t make sense. And if you’re thinking about kids, the last thing you want to do is create a tradition where everyone opens gifts at your MIL’s house Xmas morning bc coming to your house for dinner. You understand you would have to bring your kids to that, right?

My family does the “everyone watch one person at a time open gifts thing” so I don’t think that’s too weird (although I know one of my BILs finds it super uncomfortable to be stared at so we try to mostly get him join gifts with my sister or makes sure other conversations are happening when it’s his turn as a compromise). But we also only open 2-3 gifts total on Christmas Day; I can see it getting really boring if you had to wait through 10+ rounds. (I take OP’s assertion that SIL gets such a disproportionate number of gifts with a grain of salt since the number and discrepancy has increased significantly in their second post.)

Regardless OP I would suggest that (a) you say you don’t want to host presents so maybe someone else in the family can do Christmas breakfast/presents which you can attend or not as you wish and (b) be prepared for grandparents to give your kids tons of gifts. Maybe discuss with your fiancé how the two of you want to handle the latter once you actually have kids?

Anonymous wrote:Op here,
Thank you above. Someone gets it. It’s just too much.

It's rude and I would have the fiance tell them it needs to change. I would also get up and do something else after sister opens 1 or 2 presents. Parents and sister need to do their xmas before coming to your house.

Anonymous wrote:Op here,
At Christmas morning my fiancé and I open gifts to each other. In the afternoon, his family comes over and bring gifts. I’m talking like 50+ gifts no exaggeration. It takes a while to even bring it into the house. We sit together and open gifts. Around 2 gifts will be for everyone each. Then SIL will receive like 95% of the gifts. So then it becomes more about her because we’re all together watching her open them while we’re done. These gifts are basically all from her parents.

I just wanted to know how to put it to them in the future of us doing gifts separately. I think we’ll just do Christmas dinner from now hoping they already gave her her gifts. I am fine with gift giving but it does take a while to watch someone open that many gifts. If it was a child I would not care. I just find it awkward. I think it is the amount of gifts we have to watch being opened that takes awhile.

This is my third time commenting to say that this is similar to what my husbands family did/does. His mom and aunt bring a literal car load of gifts. We have requested no gifts, please only gifts for our children, so we do sit there and watch his sister and brother in law open gifts.

It’s not on Christmas Day though. We do this at a pre arranged Christmas gift exchange and it’s still painful.

Anonymous wrote:Op here,
At Christmas morning my fiancé and I open gifts to each other. In the afternoon, his family comes over and bring gifts. I’m talking like 50+ gifts no exaggeration. It takes a while to even bring it into the house. We sit together and open gifts. Around 2 gifts will be for everyone each. Then SIL will receive like 95% of the gifts. So then it becomes more about her because we’re all together watching her open them while we’re done. These gifts are basically all from her parents.

I just wanted to know how to put it to them in the future of us doing gifts separately. I think we’ll just do Christmas dinner from now hoping they already gave her her gifts. I am fine with gift giving but it does take a while to watch someone open that many gifts. If it was a child I would not care. I just find it awkward. I think it is the amount of gifts we have to watch being opened that takes awhile.

Their bringing gifts for family members they haven’t seen that day is really super normal. Sounds like your family did things differently but this isn’t out of the realm of standard.

Op here. Thanks for all your input.

Anonymous wrote:Op here,
At Christmas morning my fiancé and I open gifts to each other. In the afternoon, his family comes over and bring gifts. I’m talking like 50+ gifts no exaggeration. It takes a while to even bring it into the house. We sit together and open gifts. Around 2 gifts will be for everyone each. Then SIL will receive like 95% of the gifts. So then it becomes more about her because we’re all together watching her open them while we’re done. These gifts are basically all from her parents.

I just wanted to know how to put it to them in the future of us doing gifts separately. I think we’ll just do Christmas dinner from now hoping they already gave her her gifts. I am fine with gift giving but it does take a while to watch someone open that many gifts. If it was a child I would not care. I just find it awkward. I think it is the amount of gifts we have to watch being opened that takes awhile.

So, it is just that you want SIL to open her gifts elsewhere. Everyone else is ok because it fits into what you think is acceptable? Personally, I think the thing to do is just go with it, even if you are rolling your eyes internally. Sometimes when families combine, the habits of one set are annoying, awkward, weird, whatever, to the other set. The key to happy inlaw relationships is to not care so much, especially here, when it doesn't actually affect you in any way, except that you find it annoying. If you spend any time at all reading this site, you should be grateful if this is the most annoying thing you need to deal with from your inlaws.

Anonymous wrote:Op here,
At Christmas morning my fiancé and I open gifts to each other. In the afternoon, his family comes over and bring gifts. I’m talking like 50+ gifts no exaggeration. It takes a while to even bring it into the house. We sit together and open gifts. Around 2 gifts will be for everyone each. Then SIL will receive like 95% of the gifts. So then it becomes more about her because we’re all together watching her open them while we’re done. These gifts are basically all from her parents.

I just wanted to know how to put it to them in the future of us doing gifts separately. I think we’ll just do Christmas dinner from now hoping they already gave her her gifts. I am fine with gift giving but it does take a while to watch someone open that many gifts. If it was a child I would not care. I just find it awkward. I think it is the amount of gifts we have to watch being opened that takes awhile.

I think of you say come for dinner that’s fine, but since this is their “family Christmas” they will still open gifts. Should they get together with SIL a different day to open gifts? Do they give you all bigger gifts and SIL lots of less expensive ones? If it’s grossly uneven, I’d have fiancé say mom, it’s a bit Awkward watching Larla open so many gifts. Do you think you could just pick a few favorites for her to open at our hisie? Don’t expect this to go over well. Otherwise, you can stop hosting, but seems like they like their kids to own all gifts together.

No, we don't see extended family for Christmas, or even our parents, since everyone lives on another continent. Gifts are sent only between my parents, us and our children. Makes it so much more simper and more enjoyable. I give some gifts to friends, too, but not on the day itself.

Op here,
At Christmas morning my fiancé and I open gifts to each other. In the afternoon, his family comes over and bring gifts. I’m talking like 50+ gifts no exaggeration. It takes a while to even bring it into the house. We sit together and open gifts. Around 2 gifts will be for everyone each. Then SIL will receive like 95% of the gifts. So then it becomes more about her because we’re all together watching her open them while we’re done. These gifts are basically all from her parents.

I just wanted to know how to put it to them in the future of us doing gifts separately. I think we’ll just do Christmas dinner from now hoping they already gave her her gifts. I am fine with gift giving but it does take a while to watch someone open that many gifts. If it was a child I would not care. I just find it awkward. I think it is the amount of gifts we have to watch being opened that takes awhile.

My mother stays with us on Christmas Eve. We open presents with her in the morning, then my sis and her fam arrive. We open present wit them too, mainly gifts from my mother to niece and nephew. We’ve already opened most of our gifts before they arrive. Even my 5 year old understands the dynamic. We already had our turn. I guess you could ask them over earlier in day if it’s such a thing for you.

Very odd childish reaction on your part though. Do you not like future sil? You sound dismissive of her experience.

You’re the meeting spot. Stop being silly. If you don’t want to host them suggest you all meet at in laws