UO/FFFC for the holidays

[erbear]

I hate that people judge how much you buy your kids. Who the fuck cares if you buy three things or thirty?

[Widget123]

Dec 22, 2016 10:57:36 GMT -5 @jemomma said:

I am not on board with the idea floating around lately that your kid's "Santa gift" should not be the largest or most extravagant gift they get. A friend told me her son's pre-k sent home a note about this. The idea being that a kid who's parents are not as well off will not feel bad when he gets a pair of socks and his friend gets a TV from Santa.

No one should be telling parents how to gift to their kids.

The whole Santa gift thing is a new concept to me. My OB was explaining to me how she assembles out of the box one wow gift as the Santa gift. That sounds pretty cool.  Prior Christmases I did not think to distinguish between what Santa gives and what immediate family gives. I would not put judgment on someone for doing one wow Santa gift like that.

[erbear]

Dec 22, 2016 10:55:06 GMT -5 madymoiselle said:

I don't care how much you buy your kids but 30 things seems unnecessary. I am in team quality over quantity.

Who's to say they're not all quality gifts?

[erbear]

Yeah, I don't equate quality with price, but I see what you mean.

[erbear]

Dec 22, 2016 11:13:32 GMT -5 madymoiselle said:

Dec 22, 2016 11:08:01 GMT -5 erbear said:

Who's to say they're not all quality gifts?

Isn't this an expression?
I am sorry but when i see living rooms and play rooms literally flooded with toys, I think it is unnecessary.

Cool. Don't come over my house, then.

[holliberry28]

Dec 22, 2016 11:25:36 GMT -5 @jemomma said:

I am planning to order chinese food for Christmas dinner.

This may be both fffc and uo.

That's what us Jews do.

[erbear]

Dec 22, 2016 11:25:36 GMT -5 @jemomma said:

I am planning to order chinese food for Christmas dinner.

This may be both fffc and uo.

Pre-baby, this was what we did. We ate at the Chinese restaurant in Disney on Christmas on our honeymoon to keep it up!

If I didn't have a turkey breast gifted to me I need to cook, we'd so do this again.

[jillywilly]

Dec 22, 2016 11:47:53 GMT -5 madymoiselle said:

Thanks @jemomma , I agree 100%, this is a much better approach than how my family did it. I don't know if it is a french thing or European (@hazeldublin ?) but it is much better IMO.

When I was little, everything was basically from Santa as well. Some gifts from grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. that flew in from Germany were from those specific relatives, but I never got anything from mom and dad and never batted an eye at it. 

I honestly don't know how we're going to handle the Santa/mom and dad presents - on one hand, Christmas is Santa's holiday, so why shouldn't he get the glory those few short years your kid actually believes in him? But I also understand the whole, well, why can't Santa bring all kids equal presents, so doing some from mom and dad. 

[jillywilly]

Dec 22, 2016 13:00:22 GMT -5 budders said:

Dec 22, 2016 11:32:55 GMT -5 madymoiselle said:

Also I am very unfamiliar with a Santa gift. How do you guys present Santa to your kids? He brings one gift and then they know everything else is from mom, dad, grandma...?
I grew up with Santa brings all the gifts for me to every house where I get one, so I am guenuile curious.

We always had Santa bring everything (that was from my parents) too. I'm not sure how we'll do it once V understands more.

My parents STILL write Santa on the gifts they give to my sisters and me, and when we lived at home as adults my dad would wait until we were in bed to put them out.

My mom does this, too. DS' presents are from Santa as well, because obviously Santa makes two stops for him. Santa was (and still is) serious business to them. H's family was not like this - we've vaguely talked about presents from Santa/us/whoever before, and it's good that we have at least this next year to figure it out, because we're on wildly different pages on the whole thing. 

[jillywilly]

Semi-related flame Free Christmas confession - I'm kinda annoyed the MIL has bought a greater quantity of gifts than us, and spent more money on DS for Christmas than H and I did (aka Santa, at least this year). Grandparents shouldn't get to be the "star" of Christmas. Santa should. I know I've complained about her and the excess that goes into her Christmas, but it still bothers me that we're going to go to my parents, he's going to get a couple things, then he's getting his kitchen and a couple other little things from Santa at our house Christmas morning - then later Christmas day he's going to MIL's and won't be able to see the floor in her living room there will be so many presents. Too much. And I don't want to have to buy a gajillion things on Santa's behalf in the years to come just so he can keep up with her!

I promise this to my last complaint about her this holiday season (hopefully).

[jillywilly]

stcyct, please see my HDBD contribution for the week. One huge present from MIL was assembled last weekend, and my mom didn't want to wrap Thomas, so DS already has a head start on his presents as well. There still will be plenty of excitement on Christmas itself, so why not spread the joy a little, especially, if like us, you have a toddler starting to go stir crazy because the weather has been miserable, so hardly any playing outside!

[mrsdee1982]

Dec 22, 2016 11:25:36 GMT -5 @jemomma said:

I am planning to order chinese food for Christmas dinner.

This may be both fffc and uo.

We're having tacos.   I know this is not an UO here.  

[mrsmonogrammed]

I'm wearing the tank top I wore to bed last night to work today. It matched my sweater and I wasn't changing the whole outfit for a "dirty" tank top. ::shrugs::

[veggiemo]

Dec 22, 2016 13:29:44 GMT -5 mrsmonogrammed said:

I'm wearing the tank top I wore to bed last night to work today. It matched my sweater and I wasn't changing the whole outfit for a "dirty" tank top. ::shrugs::

I have definitely done this.

[tiffbot]

Not only do we still get gifts from Santa from my ILs, my parents, and my grandma, my grandma also signs her gifts from the farm pets. Currently there's just a cat there but there will be gifts "From Cat" (because they didn't think they were keeping this specific cat now years later he is still there nameless haha)

[tiffbot]

But to me Santa gifts are mostly stocking stuffers with one bigger thing. Like we got DS a bike this year so Santa is giving him a helmet, and DD is getting a doll carrier for the tricycle, then just other small things.

[mrsmonogrammed]

Dec 22, 2016 15:42:39 GMT -5 sammyca said:

Same system as @hazeldublin. Santa gives all the presents from us. Grandparents, cousins etc give their presents to the kids so they get that credit.

This sounds like it's going to be a UO (except with madymoiselle maybe): I will not allow a toy dominated room in my house. We have toy storage in our two living areas and in the kids' bedrooms but no room can ever get dominated by toys. I also happily steal toys from my kids before they have fully opened them that they are gifted if I don't like them or we already have something similar. #toybitch

We returned about 75% of what was given to C at her birthday. The store credit was/will be used to buy her things but no way was I letting 7293052 toys take over our house. I can see myself doing exactly your last sentence in the future. #notsorry

[dogmama22]

Dec 22, 2016 16:05:47 GMT -5 Kristykristyleelee said:

My C: definitely resenting MIL lately. Really salty about the fact that we won't get to have a magical Christmas morning just the 3 of us and that we will be sharing that with her.

I cannot imagine. I'm kind of salty that we'll be waking up at the ILs on Christmas morning since it's on a Sunday this year, so we'll just go up for the weekend. It's worse that she's in your house at all times, especially with no sign of leaving. How does one not know that they're intruding on their daughter's little family?

[periwinkledaydreams]

My OU, or unpopular decision I guess.. I have no intention of doing Santa in our house, and Im glad SO is on the same page. I have no feels/opinions whatsoever about what other people do as far as santa/presents etc, but Im just not a Santa fan. And I think xmas can be just as magical and exciting without him.

[periwinkledaydreams]

Also team heck no to toy explosions. Again, no cares at all as to what other people do. But nothing drives me bonkers like a toybox stuffed to the brim with mismatched pieces and parts of toys and games that dont go together and you can never find the complete set of anything. I think it comes from early childhood classrooms and having everything categorized and separate maybe.

I sound like no fun at all LOL.

[periwinkledaydreams]

budders yes! I was just thinking of that thread where I learned some people wrap every thing inside the stocking!

[musicfrk2002]

Dec 22, 2016 16:05:47 GMT -5 Kristykristyleelee said:

My C: definitely resenting MIL lately. Really salty about the fact that we won't get to have a magical Christmas morning just the 3 of us and that we will be sharing that with her.

I hear you. Mine is on our couch until the 28th. I'm planning on nicely kicking her out for at least a half hour so we can have a little time with just us. She can sit in J's room on her computer or something, right?

[pghtruelove]

jillywilly, MIL did the same thing, I told her she could get the kitchen and things for the kitchen, because she wanted to. Fine. But now in my garage is 4 huge boxes of stuff for her. I feel like she is trying to prove that she is the best grandparent and loves her the most. Oh and she had SOs dad but his own gifts for her. It doesn't matter this year because she doesn't understand but it sucks because my dad doesn't have a lot of money and could only get her 1 thing and he feels so bad about it. It just annoys me.

budders I also wrap everything in the stocking, but I wrap it in tissue paper instead of wrapping paper. Also I don't wrap candy.

What we are doing this year, but I don't know if it will be our tradition, is all presents from Santa, but SO and I each got her a special gift. So I got her a stack of books and he got her a special thing from him. Just kind of trying things out while she won't remember too much.
We are also only wrapping a handful of gifts and the rest will already be opened and assembled in her play area. Don't want to deal with fussy child opening gifts forever.
My FFCC is that we bought her a ton of toys. More than I'd normally do, but she didn't get many toys for her bday and still only really has her baby baby toys(with a few age appropriate thrown in). We plan on tomorrow going through and putting away the majority of her toys.

[jessila]

H and I have talked about our Santa plan. There will just be one present, unwrapped and assembled, from Santa. This year it's a singing and dancing Mickey. It was $30 when I bought it in October.
Our stocking are filled with small niceish things. FFFC: I know there's a new pearl ring in mine because I bought it for myself. I wanted a mother's type ring.
I really loved the magic of Santa but H was one of those obnoxious kids who figured it out by kindergarten. I think we'll see how O responds to it all in a couple years.

[baytosa2013]

Dec 22, 2016 15:42:39 GMT -5 sammyca said:

Same system as @hazeldublin. Santa gives all the presents from us. Grandparents, cousins etc give their presents to the kids so they get that credit.

This sounds like it's going to be a UO (except with madymoiselle maybe): I will not allow a toy dominated room in my house. We have toy storage in our two living areas and in the kids' bedrooms but no room can ever get dominated by toys. I also happily steal toys from my kids before they have fully opened them that they are gifted if I don't like them or we already have something similar. #toybitch

Not UO with me. I have 2 tall baskets in the living room, her bedroom and the loft. Everything must fit in those. If it doesn't I either put it away in a box I have to rotate toys or if she hasn't played with it for a while it gets donated. She is way too squirrel and gets distracted so I end up with a room full of shit everywhere. If I don't limit it and corral it I go fucking insane. We have one large toy in the loft. Right now it's the little singing door thing but come Saturday it will be her kitchen so the door goes bye bye. I also only have one child's toys to worry about so there's that!

Santa brought stockings and cool toys, mom and dad got us the boring shit like socks and pjs and gramma, uncles, aunts etc gave us their gifts and we gave them ours. We'll do the same for C.

[sabrinaml]

The only wrapped item in Cs stocking is his Christmas ornament.
We will do a small amount of gifts from Santa (this years example: 2 books, Melissa and Doug musical instruments, a pack of hot wheels, and a sled.) Santas gifts are wrapped in a different type of paper than I use for everything else. (Sled won't be wrapped)
This year he's only getting a few things from us since he really doesn't know better. We asked grandparents to limit the "toys" (big gift from inlaws is they are paying for his swim lessons instead) aunts/uncles were given one idea of something he likes. SIL puts money into his college 529 acct.

[sabrinaml]

Like many others have stated my ILs usually go crazy with the gifts (we'll see how this year goes since we asked them to take it easy.) I know my mom feels bad because she doesn't get him nearly as much but C is the only grandchild for my ILs, my mom now has 6 other grandkids to buy for on top of C.

[sabrinaml]

Dec 23, 2016 7:35:03 GMT -5 budders said:

I fall in between on the toy debate. I don't mind giving up a space for these toys, especially now that we have an additional family room in our new house, but we buy very few for him. I know for certain that the grandparents bought him more than we did this year.

I'm the same. We have a "formal living room" with no furniture in it. It might as well be used for something besides my treadmill. As C and the baby get older and can play in their rooms alone, more toys will be moved out and upstairs to their bedrooms.

[erbear]

I wrap everything...except I couldn't figure out how to wrap puffs so I threw them in her stocking. Then I also didn't want to wrap the box of animal crackers and the box of goldfish and the toothbrush, so in they go!

My husband peeks, so I still have to wrap all of his.

[Widget123]

I can't imagine fully assembling all of the toys before Christmas. That is H's job anyway and he is more likely to get it done with kids nagging him vs. me nagging him.