OMG. If your kids are anything like my son, then they're absolutely beyond spoiled by their grandparents. And when I say spoiled, I mean, "If Mommy won't buy it for me, I can probably talk Grams into getting it the next time we're out shopping" kind of spoiled. (Yep, that's my kid.)
And while it's understandable for grandparents to want their grandchildren to have everything (and anything) during the holidays, oftentimes they tend to go overboard and buy them gift after gift after gift -- to the point that you just want to look at them and say, "Enough, already!"
Being that I'm an only child, and my son is an only child, thus making him the only grandchild -- my parents definitely do way more than their fair share of making his adorable little face light up brighter than the tree on Christmas morning.
But now that he's getting a little older, it's probably high time that I tried to reel them in a bit as far as how many presents they wind up giving him. Here are a few tips I may even have to try this year in the hopes that they know when to "just say no" to giving their credit cards a beating.
1. Have them clean your playroom -- Yes, literally have them come over to your house and clean up your playroom at the end of each day. When they realize just how much stuff your kids have, odds are good that they'll get the message.
2. Set a gift limit -- If your children's grandparents tend to be really stubborn, laying some ground rules as far as how many gifts they are allowed to give might help keep them in line. (I said might. It's at least worth a shot.)
3. Set a dollar limit -- Simply tell them that you'd prefer they don't go over xyz dollars when it comes to what they get your kids. (Again, this one is easier said than done, but worth a try.)
4. Give them a list -- If you want to try and control how many presents the grandparents buy -- then give them a list of presents to buy and insist that they stick to it. (Easy enough.)
5. Have a heart-to-heart -- Sit them down and explain to them that you are hoping to teach your kids that giving is just as much fun as receiving this year, so they can help you instill this message in the kids by keeping the presents to a minimum.
What other tips do you have for keeping the grandparents under control this year?
Image via Mary Fischer
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Comments 52
To the person that said how bout being grateful...you obviously done have grandparents that go WAY overboard. My sons first Christmas between my aunt inlaw and mother in law the boy had about 65-75 gifts to open. He was 10 flipping months old. I am pretty sure he had every Fisher Price toy out there. It was obscene. I had nowhere to go with the crap.
My In-Laws tend to go overboard all year, not just at the holidays. We are grateful, but eventually when our house started looking like a toy store, I had to try to curb the gift giving. There are a couple things that have worked for us, and not all of them deal directly with the grandparents.
First, when we go to the store, my mother-in-law takes our son to look at and play with the toys, but when it's time to go home, I help him put the toys away and tell him that we have to leave them there for him to play next time. If my MIL has put anything in the cart, I usually say something like "Oh he has one of those and doesn't really play with it" or "you know wer don't have room for that right now". Shopping together gives me some control.
At Christmas and his birthday, when I know there's no way to stop the presents coming, we let him open all the presents, and thank everyone like normal. Instead of taking all of the toys out of the package, though, I put some of them in the closet until a few months later. That way I can get rid of the ones he's bored with, and he's much more interested in the "new" ones. Sometimes I even take the unopened toys that he's too old for, or that we already have duplicates of, and use them as gifts. Some people may not approve of "re-gifting" but I figure a new toy is a new toy either way.
LOL I love the cleaning the playroom one!!