This morning while getting ready for work my (36f) husband (38m) nervously brought up the fact that Christmas is this weekend and we haven’t bought any gifts for his family and his brother texted him asking if we were coming over to open presents on Christmas morning…
And I was caught off guard. Buying gifts for his family and their children had never even crossed my mind. It’s not really something my family does. We certainly don’t buy gifts for the adults in our family and no one gets each other’s kids gifts. Grandparents have been known to get a few things for grand babies but nothing major or overkill. Every couple of years one or the other of my parents will ask my siblings and I if there is something we really need and at that point they’ll cover a bigger ticket item or even a bill or car repair when we were younger and struggling but for the most part all members of my family are financially stable and set so we generally just tell them to make sure they’re taking care of themselves and investing in their retirement well.
We have been known to take what we like to call a Thankmas trip/experience over a long weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas so each family can spend Christmas with their spouses’ or immediate family while we don’t miss out on time together. Like the year before COVID I bought a block of rooms at a Great Wolf Lodge and all access passes for everyone and their families and we spent 4 days just hanging out. We did a silly adult white elephant gift exchange and a couple of those Christmas tape ball present games for kids and adults but that was it. My dad always makes his famous homemade spice concoctions and gives them out as presents. A couple bottles of really good alcohol generally gets exchanged especially if someone has been overseas that year but none of it is guaranteed nor expected. Last year another of my siblings rented a huge Air BnB in a popular winter sport town and we all converged there for the long weekend etc. it doesn’t happen every year but we try to do it every other or at least every third year. My family is very spread out across the states so getting together is a production. But we love each other and know if anyone ever needed anything we would all be there at the drop of a hat.
My husband’s family on the other hand all live in the same county and get together for EVERYTHING. Birthdays, holidays, Fridays etc. it’s not uncommon to have surprise drop-ins. It’s lovely and we normally participate in get togethers but have tapered off a bit this year because I’m pregnant with our first child and I’ve gotten very sick after every get together. I’m currently 20 days out from a planned c-section due to medical reasons on my side (baby is perfectly healthy and pregnancy has been completely uneventful). I have zero desire to pick up COVID, RSV or Step at this point all of which are swirling around our community. Our nieces and nephews on my husband’s side are elementary school or daycare age and have been sick at least once a month and one of my SIL is a school teacher. His step mom literally just had brain surgery so I am…somewhat shocked she would risk a big family get together but their out look is apparently “this is what family does.”
Weird illness years aside…I’ve always been uncomfortable with the level of gift giving in their family for birthdays (this will be the first Christmas I spend with his family). We’re talking huge extended family parties where the child ends up with 20-30 presents (plus a second party for only immediate family with more presents). Most of which are ignored and discarded by the end of the day. Their rooms are filled with toys to the point where I can’t see the floor. It’s a level of excess I am unaccustomed to…
So when my husband brought it up this morning my immediate knee jerk reaction was why would we be buying all of them Christmas gifts?! That’s crazy. And to be honest he seemed relieved. He was married before when he was younger and told me between his family and her family Christmas meant spending thousands of dollars. But I also don’t want to alienate his family. So I quickly offered a compromise of “I’m perfectly happy to open savings accounts for all the kids in the family and start putting $50-100 in them for each birthday and holiday (even happy to deposit more in the older kids accounts to get them caught up on missed years) and they can have the account at 16 or 18 or whenever my husband deems the right time. He made the comment that they wouldn’t even understand what that is but in my opinion it’s the gift that would actually end up being appreciated in the end. I can guarantee you that none of his nieces of nephews could pin point which gift actually came from us before.
We’re pretty financially secure and we have been getting a single nice gift for adult birthdays on his side (like a lawn mower that was needed or a black stone griddle/grill that was really wanted etc) but I don’t see that as an every year thing and I don’t see that as a birthday AND Christmas thing for sure.
It’s made me realize that we need to have a larger conversation about holidays and birthdays as we raise our soon to be children. My husband has been FULLY on board with my family’s Christmas tradition of just four gifts for kids, something they need, something they want, something to share and something unexpected. But I’m now realizing as our kids grow up they’re going to feel left out attending their cousins’ birthdays and holidays when they get significantly fewer gifts than everyone else. (And yes I realize that how we raise our kids is going to play into how they handle that greatly but they’ll also be kids with big feelings and immature emotional tool boxes for quite a few years, this is an issue my husband and I will have to address as they grow.)
What I want to know is would I be the asshole for not participating in the copious gift giving tradition of their family and how do I explain/impress on his family that we don’t feel the need for them to get us or our children a million things either? Everyone already seems pretty off put by the fact that I didn’t and am not going to have a baby shower and that I told everyone we don’t actually need anything for the baby but if they really felt the need a special book and/or a special item from them would be perfectly fine but certainly not necessary or expected. This has resulted in my coming home to boxes upon boxes of used kids toys and clothes on my porch to the point where I feel like a dumping ground and inundated with loads of things we AREN’T planning on using with our kids. Which is creating more stress because not only are we pretty minimalist but we’re remodeling our house and have NO room for these things (I’m not kidding when I say we have a pile of unopened boxes of used baby things twice as big as our large couch in our living room.)
I feel like a pretentious asshole even typing this up and I certainly don’t want them thinking I am a pretentious asshole. How do I navigate this without being an asshole or alienating his family? And I really don’t want to spend the next two days in the holiday rush trying to find meaningful gifts while 20 days out from giving birth. Shopping is my nightmare on a good day.🤦🏻♀️
I feel like some people are going to say leave it up to my husband since it’s his family but he works an exceptionally demanding job and I work from home on a schedule that’s completely my own with my last project for the year having wrapped up last Friday. So I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving it on his plate.
Also suggestions on investing birthday and holiday money in a better way than a savings account would be welcomed!
TL:DR
My husbands family centers around copious gift giving for every holiday and birthday. I feel uncomfortable with it don’t want to participate (willing to compromise with starting savings or investment accounts we put money into each holiday or birthday for the kids in his family) but also don’t want that value impressed on our soon to be here children as well. How do I properly navigate this without coming off as a pretentious asshole.
4 comments
This isn’t an uncommon problem and something many married couples deal with. My SO and I had to figure this out and ultimately it worked. My SO’s family was into the Christmas gift giving as you described (not quite as elaborate) and I suggested we switch to dirty santa/drawing names and much of the family was relieved to do this. There are 1 or 2 that still do buy for all, but that is only cause they really like to spend money. I did get some negative feedback for changing this, but felt that this was the only way to handle the inequality in the gifts being purchased versus income inequality. Best of luck.
As a child my father’s family and my mother were very different. I was showered in gift from the first set of grand parents and never recieved anything but a small check from the other (the more well off, ironically). I never questionned it until I was 16/18 and by that time I accepted that this was how they were. Kids don’t see things from an adult perspective, they just do with what they have. However I didn’t have a ton of cousin who would get spoiled in front of me.
You can’t change his family’s way all alone. So you gotta find a compromise who spares their feelings and meet your educational goals.
Is the family open to do monetary gifts sometimes, for when the kid is older and can appreciate the value of it?
I think another solution could be to do your kids birthday with close family only, so he doesn’t get thousands of gifts. And maybe skip the gift part of other’s kids birthday if that’s feasible.
On Christmas, maybe let them spoil your kid a little, wait a few weeks, then sell the toys your kid don’t use and put the product in an account at his name. So your kids won’t feel that much left out but you will be able to manage the damage of hundreds of toys.
I have no idea if I’m thinking straight, but there are my two cents!
You and your husband definitely have a lot of things to talk through, which will probably take you a while to hash out.
For this year, I’d say blame your pregnancy for everything—don’t get into the present stuff now, three days before Christmas when everyone’s emotions are high. Just try to foist off as many people as possible and use whatever baby related excuses you need to to kick this can down the road. Use the next year to hash out your thoughts together and by next year you need to have a coherent plan. That goes double because your child’s birthday will be very shortly after Christmas, so you will need 2x the plan for 2x the gifts.
Just remember as well that this is your husband’s family and he should be taking the lead on discussing holidays with them. Women get put in charge of holiday shit by default in a lot of families and you don’t even like his family’s holiday shit! Why are HIS family texting YOU about your plans? Why didn’t it occur to HIM to talk about HIS family Christmas more than two days ahead? Your husband has already been dropping the ball here.
If your husband isn’t willing to take the lead with his own side of the family and set some boundaries, you may as well give in to his present mountain because you’ll never be able to break away from it on your own. If he really is all in for your family’s style, he needs to own up to it with his side.
**I feel like some people are going to say leave it up to my husband since it’s his family but he works an exceptionally demanding job and I work from home on a schedule that’s completely my own with my last project for the year having wrapped up last Friday. So I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving it on his plate.**
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This is very kind of you but unless he’s in a coma, I’d still expect my husband to handle his family. This doesn’t mean you can’t brainstorm solutions or something but he should ultimately present them and handle communications & negotiations. And not throw you under the bus.
And I think you should embrace being a pretentious asshole. I have. It’s awesome! LOL.
But really: what you’ve proposed is lovely and generous. I wish my MIL had done that instead of giving my nieces shit tons of clothes and toys they discarded. They would have had such a better start to their college years.