Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My ILs are Chinese and give a red envelope and maybe something little and cute to open, like novelty mittens or a fun sweater. My parents tell me to pick one big thing for them to give DD. Off-topic: they won’t buy, ship, or wrap it. So I pick the big thing (but have to lie about the price, because they are rich but cheap), wrap it in paper that they choose from my stash via FaceTime, and give it to DD. Then we pretend that they will send me a check for the gift.

My SIL (brother’s wife, not DH’s sister) has a family that does heaps of plastic toy presents under the tree. I learned not to FaceTime with my nephews on Christmas afternoon bc DD isn’t old enough to understand that cousins have different sets of grandparents or that the red envelope she receives is more than equal to the value of her cousin’s toy pile.

I am Indian married to a caucasian man and my parents are similar - they give a check or donate to the 529 for Christmas and ask me to buy a gift and say it's from them (I'm happy to comply because that $50 gift is way less than the $1000 they deposited into each of my kid's 529s). DH and I suggested his parents give the kids fewer presents and start their own 529s for the kids with the extra money (bonus, tax benefit), but they refuse. Kids don't need 10 gifts at Christmas, but they will need money for college.

Tacky.

Anonymous wrote:My ILs are Chinese and give a red envelope and maybe something little and cute to open, like novelty mittens or a fun sweater. My parents tell me to pick one big thing for them to give DD. Off-topic: they won’t buy, ship, or wrap it. So I pick the big thing (but have to lie about the price, because they are rich but cheap), wrap it in paper that they choose from my stash via FaceTime, and give it to DD. Then we pretend that they will send me a check for the gift.

My SIL (brother’s wife, not DH’s sister) has a family that does heaps of plastic toy presents under the tree. I learned not to FaceTime with my nephews on Christmas afternoon bc DD isn’t old enough to understand that cousins have different sets of grandparents or that the red envelope she receives is more than equal to the value of her cousin’s toy pile.

I am Indian married to a caucasian man and my parents are similar - they give a check or donate to the 529 for Christmas and ask me to buy a gift and say it's from them (I'm happy to comply because that $50 gift is way less than the $1000 they deposited into each of my kid's 529s). DH and I suggested his parents give the kids fewer presents and start their own 529s for the kids with the extra money (bonus, tax benefit), but they refuse. Kids don't need 10 gifts at Christmas, but they will need money for college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One gift from each set of grandparents. Too much is too much. You need to talk to the grandparents and tell them to limit it to one gift otherwise their gifts are meaningless to the child.

This seems sort of stingy. Do these grandparents also only give their kids one gift? We aren't huge into gifts but just one seems like a cheap, arbitrary number.

Why does one seem stingy? That seems selfish...

My parents give 2-3 per grandchild, probably spend around $200. DH's parents give 2-3 per grandchild, probably spend around $100. Not all of it is toys on either side, sometimes there is clothing, DHs parents do books a lot or a Christmas ornament, my mother has made a quilt or something similar, I'd say each side gives one good sized toy along with some other items.

FIl gives each grand kid a check for $25. This was the case forever. He has 7 grandkids and had been a widower since first grandkids was born. I think this must be an issue with grandmas more? My parents are from another country where this Xmas giving is not a thing. They did "spoil" my kids when they would come to visit with clothes, money and toys when kids we younger. It was never more than $15 for a toy and it was mostly ice cream going out thing.
Kids are young adults and my mom and sister(dad passed away) give them cash. I have never interfered in it. They gave them cash for a long time. We put it into kids' savings, and they could take some out once they were older if they wanted something that we were not willing to buy, as long as we ok'd it. All these toys are waste of money, junk that will be thrown away. I don't get the insane Christmas gift giving. And I don't get how we are all supposed to fawn over some stupid toy.

Anonymous wrote:One gift from each set of grandparents. Too much is too much. You need to talk to the grandparents and tell them to limit it to one gift otherwise their gifts are meaningless to the child.

This seems sort of stingy. Do these grandparents also only give their kids one gift? We aren't huge into gifts but just one seems like a cheap, arbitrary number.

I ask that each family member give our DD (who's 4) ONE gift each. This is still a lot - one gift from my ILs, one gift each from each of my parents (who are divorced), one gift from my sister, one gift from each of DH's sisters. And they all tend to "cheat" on the one gift - ie, put multiple related gifts together, or give many books in addition to a toy, acting like books don't count.

Every year so far, we've ended up not doing any gifts for DD from DH and me other than a few tiny stocking stuffers, because she is totally overwhelmed. Last year, she unwrapped things and then started just throwing things aside and asking "what else?" which made me feel so RAGEY that she was already developing that cavalier attitude about having so much.

I plan to continue the one gift rule for the foreseeable future. I put together an Amazon wishlist of suggestions for my family, because they ask for it.

Thankfully I give suggestions to both of my parents and they just order what I send them most of the time. So 3-5 items from each of them (divorced). Then maybe 2-3 from FIL and 1 from SIL. Then we do a few from Santa and a few from us (mom and dad). So at the max 15-20 presents (which in my mind is still too much). But the kids are young, 3 and 4 years old, and have really started to LOVE Christmas so I allow it. We don't do very big birthdays or anything.

My problem isn't MIL but rather DH's crazy spinster aunt who gives us some combination of the following for christmas:
- Old things that she says are "antiques" from her house that used to belong to DH's grandparents. Usually crap. Last year we got fireplace tools that were rusting and some old probably lead-lined toys from her childhood.
- Winter coats for the kids in their current size (by Christmas, they already have winter coats).
- Clothes that she bought a year ago that are at least a size too small (and after the first year, we made sure that whenever anyone asks, we always tell them a size larger than the kids currently are).
- Books and puzzles which we are always happy to have.

Anonymous wrote:I have a theory that MILs (typically guessing most people posting are women married to men) buy more and tend to be "stuff" people because they are naturally not as close with their sons as their daughters (if they have any) and so want to buy stuff to show love. There seems to be a pattern in responses of "my MIL is a stuff person, my family is not"-- but maybe that's self-selecting who's choosing to respond too.

I was closer to my MIL than I am with my Mom as an adult. She buys what she could but she had little money. My moms just selfish and always has been. One has nothing to do with the other.

A $100 check from my IL's, and one gift from my stepmom (dad has passed away). My mom usually gets them a couple things total $100. She used to be the "30 presents under the tree type" and I hated it but she finally has stopped that nonsense.

One gift from each set of grandparents. Too much is too much. You need to talk to the grandparents and tell them to limit it to one gift otherwise their gifts are meaningless to the child.

Usually 1 toy in the $20-50 range, 1 book and sometimes an item of clothing or something practical like a water bottle or an extra set of the Paw Patrol silverware that my kids fight over.