Katharina Buczek
To her shock, though, her husband’s siblings and her mother-in-law claimed that the new gift-giving expectation had already been decided. To be honest, though, she refused to let that be the standard for her own nuclear family.
So, she ended up telling her husband’s whole side of the family that if they planned on spending money on her family this holiday season, they should direct it toward her child and not her or her partner.
Well, her request was not taken well, and it actually pushed her in-laws to come up with a somewhat bizarre idea.
The “compromise” they suggested was that the adults would get real presents; meanwhile, the kids would get old toys wrapped up to appear like new presents– since, apparently, her in-laws believed the children would not know any better.
“But the kids are not babies. They will know,” she said.
So finally, her sister-in-law ended up claiming that this Christmas, gifts should be scrapped altogether.
Then, the same sister-in-law said it was “out of the spirit of Christmas” to expect gifts for their kids anyway.
Anyway, it was ultimately decided by her husband’s family that “people will get presents for whoever the heck they want,” and it was insinuated that this lack of coordination was due to her selfishness.
And ever since then, most of her in-laws have opted to just buy expensive bottles of alcohol as gifts– so that way, the kids are excluded by default.
Plus, her in-laws even said that anyone who feels their child “deserves” a present should talk to family members separately rather than communicating via the family email thread.
And quite frankly, this entire situation has made her really upset about how all of the children– not just her child– will be experiencing this Christmas.
