Things that make me mad about holidays
1) When BM buys a one way plane ticket for SS to visit, but doesn't tell us it is one way and tricks us into sending him. Then we have to pay for a ridiculously expensive last minute ticket to get him home.
2) When we have SS on Christmas and BM calls right after he opens his presents. She used to love to make sure he realized that we didn't get him much compared to her. The kicker was she'd never buy him anything from Santa and though we'd spend more than twice what she did, he only gave us credit for what was from us (and she knew it). However, we had to just keep buying the Santa gifts because if we didn't no one would.
3) When she makes him cry over her being all by herself on Christmas.
4) When SS gloats about how many more presents he gets than our other kids. We buy for all the children equally, but he also gets from his mom and her family. We are seriously reconsidering our 'equality' standard just because he's such a punk to our other kids about this.
5) How he tells us all the expensive things he wants (like the Wii we got him last year) and tells her the cheap stuff. He knows we'll be sure to get him the thing he wants most, but knows she won't.
6) How she doesn't respect the fact that we are Christians and have a reason beyond gifts to celebrate Christmas and gets irritated by the fact we take him to church.
7) That she doesn't respect the fact that even though SS doesn't believe in Santa anymore, our young children do. When she comes home for Christmas (her family lives nearby), she wants him Christmas morning just for spite.
wow
I thought I had to bad with my ex's family. Grandma calls like a week or 2 before Christmas and expects me to reorganize my whole holiday schedule so the other side of the family can spend Christmas together and include the oldest grandchild. The child that's father did not want him in the first place. The kid the family only sees for Christmas, maybe his birthday, maybe Thanksgiving and maybe Easter, if Grandma not father calls and gives me enough notice so I can yet again rearrange carefully made plans to accomodate them yet again! It would not piss me off so much but Grandma asks for gift ideas and my son never comes home with anything from his list. When he was 7 or 8 I told Grandma he needed a winter coat and told her the size. She bought him a really nice Starter jacket one size too small and I could not return it for a larger size because I did not get the reciept from Grandma. Father bought our son the exact same gift 2 years in a row. How dunb can you be? This is the best, last year Grandma I made plans to have my son picked up at home at 10am on Christmas Day. I even suggested father pick him up since he lives across town and grandma lives about 30 miles away. I just happened to be passing the front window at about 10:30 am and guess who is sitting in his care? My son's father. He does not even have the balls to come to the door to get his son. He has our son's cell number so he could have called him or text him that he was there but he did not. He hates me that much! MORON!
Have a beautiful and thankful holiday season and don't let the BS get you down. I agree I would rethink my gift giving if the kid brags too much. Don't get him the BIG gift this year. He won't die!
I say don't buy any gifts
I say don't buy any gifts for any of them :-). One of my cousins has a rule with her family that the only gifts given at Christmas can be homemade/handmade gifts not costing a lot of money. She's trying to teach that Christmas isn't about materialism, it's about love, and giving, and peace. Another doesn't do gifts at all; their family volunteers usually at a shelter, but sometimes a nursing home. I love the idea of these things. I love those ideas and the idea of Christmas being about putting aside some quality time and doing fun things like making a gingerbread house, baking cookies, making ornaments, etc... I didn't do this with my child. Well we did gingerbread houses and cookies, but also the gifts. Lots. He got expensive gifts...and he's spoiled rotten and has a feeling of entitlement to this day...he's now 24. I love him to pieces despite the attitude... But I truly regret participating in that kind of materialism. I wish I had fostered better things. If I had it to do over, I would. Hindsight is always 20/20 though.
BTW my SO and I don't exchange gifts for birthdays or Christmas. We do something special together...like both get a massage, or both go to dinner, share a bottle of nice wine...we plan it, and make it special for us, and don't buy anything individually for each other. I really, really like it this way!
I think I would actually buy
I think I would actually buy your guy's kids a little more & if the SS mentions it then say well you get more presents at your moms that they don't get as you keep pointing out, so we wanted to make it more fair for them! Then maybe next year he'll shut up! Yeah, that would really piss me off. Actually the one time that we had my SS he saw that my son got about 30 gifts & he only got about 7. We spent the same amount on both but my son's father's family mailed 2 big boxes of presents to him because they live out of state. He was polite enough not to say anything, but we told him we bought for them equally & explained they were from his dad's side of the family. But SS also got presents from his mom's side when he got back, so it all works out equally for them. As it should for your kids!