The holidays are both joyous and stressful. It’s a balancing act trying to establish traditions and healthy boundaries with those you love. One mom tried to get her mother-in-law to stop going over the top with gifts. They even made a plan.
The mother-in-law decided to go rogue and disregard the plan. She bought her grandkids’ entire Amazon wish list leaving nothing for the rest of the family to purchase. The mother was upset and asked her MIL to return some of the gifts. She took to Reddit’s popular AITA forum to see if this was the wrong move.
Grandma loves giving lots of gifts.
The mother begins her story by stating she appreciates her in-laws but her kids simply don’t need all that stuff. “We have four kids and every single year deal with lots of issues with my in laws over Christmas and gift buying,” she began. “MIL has a set budget for each grandchild and also a set number of gifts. I’m not sure the exact amount but I believe her budget is at least $500 per grandchild (9 total in the whole family). It’s so much stuff and mostly ends up being random things no one wants simply to fill her quota. We appreciate her wanting to love and spoil our kids but this large amount creates lots of various issues and is wasteful.”
A new plan for this Christmas.
The mom decided to come up with a plan for this year. “This year we all agreed over Thanksgiving weekend that instead of so many gifts they would pay for my husband, me, our kids, MIL, and FIL to do a small weekend away somewhere,” the mom continued. “That way the kids have the memory of an experience with their grandparents and it can simplify gift buying for MIL as it’s a lot of work and stress for her. She insisted she still wanted to buy them 4 things to each open and we agreed.”
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The mother-in-law ignored the plan.
Everything was going well until the mother-in-law ignored the plan. “We having running Amazon lists that I update periodically for birthdays and Christmas,” she explained. “Yesterday I spent a large majority of my day working on Amazon lists and picking out gifts for my kids and having everything ready to order. Well come to find out MIL cleared out our kids’ lists. She bought nearly everything!! Over $300 per child worth of purchases. This has left us and my parents with little to nothing to buy.”
This mama bear has had enough.
The mom decided to put her foot down this time. “I messaged her asking if she had purchased everything and when I explained the issue I got an 'Oh I’m sorry' but no offer to help fix the issue,” she explained. “So I asked her to cancel her order. I went ahead and bought what I had picked out. I put in tons of work picking out special items and making lists for all grandparents and she just goes against our agreement, clicks on everything and done. I’m usually a push over when it comes to her and so much of me feels good about putting my foot down but I also feel guilty. My husband suggested us finding other gifts but I feel like the kids don’t need so much stuff and it’s the principle of consideration for others as well.”
The mom concluded by admitting she did feel bad about the mother-in-law having to return the gifts and shop again. She wonders if she did the right thing.
Reddit ruled in favor of the mom.
Reddit was almost unanimously on this mother’s side.
“You had an agreement with her, and she violated the agreement,” wrote one user.
“She has to learn to respect your and her son's parenting decisions,” agreed another.
Here is some advice.
Some users offered advice like hiding the Amazon wish list from grandma or making two separate ones.
One user had a suggestion: “Do what my parents have done with my kids. For birthdays and holidays, they give the kids a check and sometimes a small gift item under $20. I put the checks in an investment account for each kid, and when they are 16, they have enough to buy a car. They love getting 'car money.' And once they buy a car, those checks become 'house downpayment money.' Your MILs money could go a long way in making a signifcant positive impact on the kids' lives, if only she would stop buying so much."
There was some disagreement.
Some users did disagree with the mother and pointed out that the mother-in-law can do what she wants with her own money.
“You’re putting so much energy into trying to control what she wants to buy, you need to just let her spend her money how she wants to,” they advised. "Donate whatever you don’t want to keep, but this is just not a hill to die on."
Another pointed out that the mother-in-law's love language might be gifts.
Mom gets to decide.
At the end of the day, the mother got lots of good advice on how to handle her relationship with her mother-in-law. It is up to her to sort through it and decide what works best for her family.
Here’s hoping they have a wonderful holiday season together because gifts are nice but they are not the true meaning of Christmas.
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