Christmas Shopping For The In-Laws...

I've been doing my Christmas shopping for the past couple of weeks, trying to get as much done early this year instead of running around Christmas Eve like usual. My Christmas shopping list this year has drastically been shortened so I can actually see myself sitting back and enjoying Christmas Eve!!!

Dan and I have decided to cut back on our Christmas recipient list this year, not so much because of money but more so because every year for the past 18 years we have bought gifts for every one of Dan's large family which has grown even larger with the addition of several great nieces and nephews and not one of his family members except for his mom and one sister has ever so much as sent us a Christmas card...

For year now Dan has been telling me not to bother buy gifts for some of his family members, mainly his nieces, nephews and their children because they don't even take the time to say thank you or send a Christmas card. This year I agreed not to buy anything for them but I'm taking it a bit further. He has 2 sisters and 3 brothers that are all married, thats alot of gifts we have bought over the years, not to mention gifts for their children (15 children) and only one of his sisters has ever thought to say thank you and give a gift to our family. Even when money was tight his sister gave my children gifts, she has knitted scarves, put together a family picture collage and made blankets for gifts. His other brothers and sisters who are in no way hurting for money couldn't even buy a $2 card. So this year I'm crossing them of my Christmas list. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people that feels if I buy you something you owe me something, it's not like that at all. What I do feel is that if I think of you and buy you a gift than the least you could do is acknowledge that you appreciate it buy saying thank you at the very least or by taking the time to send a card, thats not to much to ask for is it?

One of his brothers who happens to also be my daughter Shayla's god farther should have been off the list along time ago. Every Christmas since Shayla was born he buys a gift for her and nothing for my other children. He also makes sure he buys something for certain other nieces and nephews. This has caused problems between my children in the past. They used to ask me why he only buys something for Shayla and the other kids but nothing for them. I never knew what to say. What was I suppose to say, because Shayla is his favorite and he feels obligated to buy for the other kids. I tried telling him that it was causing a problem between my children and his response was to bad. He said Shayla was special to him because she is not only his niece but also his god daughter and if nobody likes it to bad and then he had the audacity to say that my other children were greedy because they get upset when they don't receive a gift from him. I've tried telling him not to buy anything for Shayla but he would never listen. Finally I told the children when they got a little older that not receiving a gift from him is no big deal because they have a wonderful Christmas even without a gift from him. I also told them that he has taking being Shayla's god farther a bit to serious and that the only reason he buys for some of the other kids is because their parents would say something to him if he didn't, were as I would prefer he didn't buy anything for any of my children including Shayla. My children are older now and they could care less who he buys for or who his favorite is. All these years of him playing favorites has back fired on him and I'm loving every minute of it. Shayla finally got fed up with the role he was trying to play as her god farther. He tried acting more like her farther than anything, when all she wanted was an uncle. She used to be very close to him until she realized how her brothers and sisters felt. Their relationship went from talking almost daily to hardly talking at all. I tried warning him that my children are very close and that they care about how each others feelings. I told him one day when Shayla got older she would realize that buy him favoring her it hurt her brothers and sisters feelings and that she wouldn't want any part of it. I was right! Shayla told him 4 years ago not to buy her anything for Christmas or her birthday. She told him it wasn't right to just buy her something and not her brothers and sisters. He tried telling her that the only reason he does that is because he can't afford to buy for every one so she told him to use the money he would have spent on her gift to buy cards for everyone...

Now Dans brother is one thing but how about a grandmother that openly shows favoritism. Dans mother has no tact what so ever. She can be down right rude. Now before I go into it about his mother I have to say that my children and I are not all about receiving lavish expensive gifts, it really is to us the thought that counts. Now onto his mother. Every Christmas we used to take the children to her house to exchange gifts with the whole family and every Christmas its the same. We go out of our way to buy something nice for her and in return she gives a sweat shirt to everyone except her favorites. The only one in my family that doesn't receive a sweat shirt is Shayla because Shayla is her favorite sons favorite. Shayla receives jewelry and other expensive gifts. While Shayla is opening her 5 or 6 gifts from granny my other children are sitting with there usually to small sweat shirts. Now if you think thats bad this woman has 24 grandchildren, 6 off them come and receive nothing, 9 of them receive a sweat shirt and 9 of them receive on the average 5 or 6 expensive gifts and she makes sure everyone opens their gifts at the same time. One time all the grandchildren were sitting around the Christmas tree waiting for granny to pass out her gifts, before she started handing them out she says to all the kids, "Some of you are going to be upset when you see what I bought for (she proceeds to name some of the children)but they appreciate their gifts." I wanted to throttle the bitc*. Not only was she sitting there lying to the children, she was trying to justify her ignorance. My children along with the other grandchildren that weren't worthy of her special attention always said thank you and showed appreciation to her for their gifts even though they knew the other grandchildren received better gifts. My daughter Riane who was about 10 or 11 at the time was offended by her comment so when the box containing her sweat shirt was handed to her she put it down without opening it. Granny noticed her doing this and said to Riane, "See I told you some of you would be upset." Well Riane wasn't going to have anyone think she was jealous so she said to granny, "I'm not jealous, I didn't open it because I already know what it is." "Thank you for the sweat shirt I'm sure it will fit Shayla." I though Dan would be upset by what Riane said to his mom but he was actually proud that she spoke up...

This woman expects everyone to buy her expensive gifts and god help you if you don't. One year Dan and I had some financial difficulties at Christmas time so we decided to concentrate on the children, ours and our nieces and nephews because we felt thats what Christmas is all about, the children! We bought his mother a pair of very nice slippers, a pair of leather gloves and a set of Christmas mugs (the woman collects mugs). She opened the gifts from us, said thank you and proceeded to tell us all about the gifts that his brothers and sisters bought for her. Several weeks later Dan had an argument with his mom because she had asked him to go over her house and fix the tiles in her bathroom. Dan had been working alot of over time to catch up on bills so he told her to have the brother that still lived at home fix the tiles, she said he works enough, he then told her to call his other brother to fix the tiles, she told him she didn't want to bother the other brother because he has a family to take care of. Dan was pissed because of her comment, he was working 60 hours a week and what the hell did he have? He has a family to take care of. Well they started arguing about her favoring certain family members, she then yelled at him, "After all I've done for you, all you could get me for Christmas was cheap shit." At first Dan was hurt but then he realized his mother has always been the same and always will be, she will always base her children's love on the amount of money they spend on her!!! I'm thinking of crossing her off the Christmas list but I don't know how well that will go over with Dan. He might just draw the line at the others...

And the prize will be...

Well I've finally decided what the prize is going to be for the Ronald McDonald Charity contest I'm doing. If you haven't read my post A Great Cause go ahead and read it and come back here to find out what the prize is going to be. For all of you that have read the post, after many sleepless nights I've decided that the prize will be a gift basket filled with pampering products. The winner will receive a basket filled with, cleansing bath and shower gel, nourishing hand and body lotion, refreshing body mist, moisturizing body butter, softening sugar scrub and a body sponge for a luxuriously Soft Lather. As if these products weren't enough, the body pampering gift basket will also have a few more surprises tucked in it. So come on everyone, help raise money for a worthy cause and get your chance to win this beautiful basket!!!

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