I hear you, OP. My 4 yo dd was very excited to pick out and wrap a gift for her 8 yo cousin. We hadn't heard anything so asked if the box had made it there alright. SIL said "Oh, yeah. She was just so overloaded with gifts that we put it in the closet for another time" and we never heard anything further.

No, it's not the end of the world. But it was pretty disappointing to a long-distance little kid who was excited to see what her cousin thought of her gift... well I guess she did in a way. (SIL tends to be someone who needs to be the center of attention at every family gathering, loads her kid with gifts year-round, and if she remembers to send something to my dd - her dd's only cousin - it's late.)

The thing that you can't do is need your sister (or whoever) to meet your expectations in order to be happy. Sometimes our families let us down and it's ok to be hurt for a moment but a bit pointless to expect them to change.

Seems like you have 2 main choices. Send the gifts knowing her system and the reality of it, or stop sending gifts. I hope that you find what works for you.

I'm not in exactly the same situation, but have much sympathy for the OP. I can't have kids (so don't belong here, I know) and have a Christmas list of 25-30 people (my family and DH's). Most of these people NEVER get us Christmas presents, some do occasionally, only my own siblings consistently. (We make plenty and need nothing, but shopping for 25+ can be exhausting, and DH rarely comes up with any ideas for his family much before December 20, at which point it would be misery for me to get it there wrapped on time - so I do almost all of it.) I am organized and start early and have a pretty good budget, so I can make it work, but it is work. Nine of the people on my list are other people's small children. Of the 25+ people whose presents I buy, I never see more than 2 opened. I'm an extrovert who is still mourning the big family Christmas I will never have (DH is an overworked introvert who is too overwhelmed to do a big Christmas, so it's always quiet). It would mean the world to me to hear from the kiddos whose presents I buy that they got them and enjoyed them, but the parents often do not even CALL, let alone have the kids do so. I literally don't know whether the presents even arrived most years (Amazon says yes, but did they get to the right kids?). I am not going to call family and demand them to put the children on to thank me. I am making sure their kids have more presents to open in lean years (and yes I know that I am fortunate to have the means - though I'd have less time and money for this if I could have had my own kids), but they can't scrape together 15 minutes for a thank-you call? I spend hours on crap for their kids. I know parents are busy, but I think even accounting for that I am asking very little, and the inconsiderateness makes me sad. I keep toying with the idea of crossing them off the Christmas list. Maybe next year.

I think your sister is rude. If my siblings insisted on opening gifts a month after Christmas that would be the last Christmas I'd send their kid anything. She should have kept that info to herself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spread out gifts to the kids at Christmas bc they get so much from relatives - the kids actually appreciate/play with the gifts much more rather than having the gifts get lost in the crowd if we dole them out over a few weeks. It's not such a big deal.

When I give a Christmas gift, I expect it to be opened on Christmas morning not two weeks or a month later. The same with birthday gifts. I would be furious if someone did this with my gifts.

Not the PP to whom you replied, but an NP here:

Wow. So no option for Christmas night (when some families do gifts), Christmas Eve (our family always opened some gifts then), the 26th (our family overseas does extended family gifts that day), the weekend after Christmas if maybe that's when the main family get-together takes place--?

And you'd waste an emotion as potent as "fury" on someone not opening your gift in a very specific time frame of a few hours on one day of the year? I assume you're saying this about gifts you've sent and won't see the person opening, which is different from handing someone a gift and watching them open it on the spot. If you're not present on Christmas morning to enforce your gift-opening rule, why get so worked up over this? Once a gift leaves your hands it's no longer yours and what you expect others to do with it doesn't matter. Do you also call your family and friends on Christmas afternoon to ensure that they opened your gifts that morning?

I'd be happier knowing that I'd given a gift that was opened when a kid or adult could give it more attention, rather than in a pile of many gifts. But it doesn't matter because once it's given, it is no longer something over which I have control.

Anonymous wrote:NP here. I usually push back to anyone demanding my time/presence at a very specific time. My inlaws do this a lot. Just say it doesn't suit today.

Even if you can make it? You have unresolved parent issues.

Anonymous wrote:How can you be a stickler for manners and hold gifts for a month?

Exactly. People should have already received their thank you notes for gifts given at Christmas.

If you want to space out gifts, why not let the kids open them closer to Christmas, but still put some of the gifts away and do the toy rotation thing? That way the kids can still thank the gift givers in an appropriate time frame. Also the gift givers won't feel upset that they gave gifts intended for Xmas but weren't received at xmas.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I knew my sister, or mother or friend had an anxiety disorder, I would be glad she was able to get it together enough to have her children thank us for their gifts, whenever she gave it to them. Be kind.

But that's the point. Does she? Does everyone who does the whole "oh I am sooooo crazy busy" and has their kids in ridiculous amounts of activities with multiple pets and running around town to exercise classes and volunteering on every committee actially have a disorder or is it just the typical "I'm so busy I am so important" thing that seems to be popular.

I vote the 2nd one most of the time

It sounds to me like she has executive functioning problems as well as self-esteem and high anxiety. I vote for the first.

Anonymous wrote:If I knew my sister, or mother or friend had an anxiety disorder, I would be glad she was able to get it together enough to have her children thank us for their gifts, whenever she gave it to them. Be kind.

But that's the point. Does she? Does everyone who does the whole "oh I am sooooo crazy busy" and has their kids in ridiculous amounts of activities with multiple pets and running around town to exercise classes and volunteering on every committee actially have a disorder or is it just the typical "I'm so busy I am so important" thing that seems to be popular.

I vote the 2nd one most of the time

If I knew my sister, or mother or friend had an anxiety disorder, I would be glad she was able to get it together enough to have her children thank us for their gifts, whenever she gave it to them. Be kind.

NP here. I usually push back to anyone demanding my time/presence at a very specific time. My inlaws do this a lot. Just say it doesn't suit today.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the OP's mistake is not knowing that there are so many SAHM on DCUM who will pounce on anyone that make reference to the fact that they have too much time on their hands and they cannot appreciate how that 30 minutes of your time seems like a lot.

OP here.
It was interesting that I said nothing initially about if I worked or not, or what my finances were like, and still got the wrath of people that assumed I was not as well off as my sister and had to work or was somehow jealous. Neither are true (we out earn them- both MD's)
I put in her "stats" because I thought it would explain that she didn't have a tiny condo that couldn't handle extra toys, or someone who truly had no time, or had health issues or worked a big job and travelled for weeks at a time, for example.

She doesn't live in DC and neither do I, so our large homes are a dime a dozen where are living (Raleigh and Pennsylvania) and not particularly expensive.

First post here, not sure why you got attacked for this stuff instead of overreacting and being slightly ridiculous. Reading through, don't you at least see that you're being unreasonable, or are you too busy being defensive?

I definitely did on page 2 and was thankful to the poster who took the time to help me. It's very frustrating after years and years of this type of thing and I do need to take a deep breath and find a better way to deal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the OP's mistake is not knowing that there are so many SAHM on DCUM who will pounce on anyone that make reference to the fact that they have too much time on their hands and they cannot appreciate how that 30 minutes of your time seems like a lot.

OP here.
It was interesting that I said nothing initially about if I worked or not, or what my finances were like, and still got the wrath of people that assumed I was not as well off as my sister and had to work or was somehow jealous. Neither are true (we out earn them- both MD's)
I put in her "stats" because I thought it would explain that she didn't have a tiny condo that couldn't handle extra toys, or someone who truly had no time, or had health issues or worked a big job and travelled for weeks at a time, for example.

She doesn't live in DC and neither do I, so our large homes are a dime a dozen where are living (Raleigh and Pennsylvania) and not particularly expensive.

First post here, not sure why you got attacked for this stuff instead of overreacting and being slightly ridiculous. Reading through, don't you at least see that you're being unreasonable, or are you too busy being defensive?

Anonymous wrote:I think the OP's mistake is not knowing that there are so many SAHM on DCUM who will pounce on anyone that make reference to the fact that they have too much time on their hands and they cannot appreciate how that 30 minutes of your time seems like a lot.

OP here.
It was interesting that I said nothing initially about if I worked or not, or what my finances were like, and still got the wrath of people that assumed I was not as well off as my sister and had to work or was somehow jealous. Neither are true (we out earn them- both MD's)
I put in her "stats" because I thought it would explain that she didn't have a tiny condo that couldn't handle extra toys, or someone who truly had no time, or had health issues or worked a big job and travelled for weeks at a time, for example.

She doesn't live in DC and neither do I, so our large homes are a dime a dozen where are living (Raleigh and Pennsylvania) and not particularly expensive.

I think the OP's mistake is not knowing that there are so many SAHM on DCUM who will pounce on anyone that make reference to the fact that they have too much time on their hands and they cannot appreciate how that 30 minutes of your time seems like a lot.

Anonymous wrote:Your reaction seems a little extreme for the situation you posted.

I think it's great she's teaching her kids to thank personally those who give them gifts. And I've saved gifts before, to open as little surprises later. They were more appreciated when my kid had time to actually enjoy THAT present, rather than 42 other presents at the same time.

This.

I spaced some of the gifts the kids received out over time - especially ones that were mailed from a distance so I could intercept them before the kids even saw them.

The kids remember FAR better the gifts they receive individually than the gifts they were slammed with in one day.

Try to enjoy this instead OP - enjoy the kids actually knowing and appreciating what you gave them. It's an opportunity to work on your connection w/ them, rather than slamming their mother.