The child should be learing what Christmas is about, not being told that she can have whatever she wants for the holiday.

This seems to be a typical move on the overbearing/control freak bm's part, but they are not doing their children any favors, nor are the helping to form the children into appreciative, respectful, thoughtful indviduals..... way to go bm!

The 2yo is too young to know what's going on and the 7yo's only have another year or two at best of still "believing." The older kids know the score. This may seem huge right now, but in a year or two, it won't matter. We always had the same problem of not being able to give all five of our kids that much and the majority of it came from "Santa." Of course, the skids get serious gifts from their mother, but hey, she's getting a huge chunk of CS that I'm sure helps pay for that. Our kids never got that much from us as the parents because after doing Santa for all five, we just didn't have the $$$ to go crazy on gifts from us, too. But last year our BS9 figured it out and once he discovered who Santa really is, he knew what it meant and he was in awe of what his dad and I go through every year to make sure Christmas is special for everyone. He was disappointed to find out about Santa, but he gained a whole new appreciation for us.

This year he knows that whatever he gets, whether the tag says from "Santa" or from us, it all comes from his dad and me and he's seeing for the first time how much effort goes into creating Christmas. Not just the presents, but everything... the shopping, the wrapping, the budgeting, the baking, the cleaning, the finding of the perfect Christmas tree, the rigging up of the lights, the stress and confusion. He knows now what WE - not "Santa" - go through to make their Christmas memorable and he's old enough now to appreciate it.

I think that was a snarky move for your BM to tell the kid that, but I'd have no problem saying, "Well, honey, I'm sure what your mom MEANT to say was that Santa does bring you some wonderful presents, but not necessarily every single thing you want. He has lots of kids to bring presents to and it would be impossible to bring every single thing every single child wants."

Fifteen minutes after all the presents are opened, they are not going to even remember what all they got, let alone who gave it to them. I'd be surprised if they even looked at the tags to see who it's from. They will know they got from your house and from her house, but the rest will be forgotten after Christmas is over.

One thing we've always done is each kid gets one "big" present and a bunch of smaller ones. The "big" one is from us, the rest are from Santa.

~ Anne ~

"Adjust on the fly, or you're going to cry."
Steve Doocy, The Mr. and Mrs. Happy Handbook