What do you do when a relative heaps presents on her children at Christmas and Your kid's pile always looks paltry in comparison?
One set of my daughter's cousins have gigantic stockings, and they often get 3-4 major presents associated with St. Nick. We have modest stockings and give one toy from St. Nick and one - two presents from ourselves. Additionally, the presents get mixed in with the heaps of presents under the tree which includes another pile to the same children from their mom and dad. I've dealt with the difference in amount of toys with my own quite a bit already and she kinda gets the inequality (and usually sees her gifts as pretty special).
The problem really stems from the tradition in how the gifts get opened. Aside from our daughter's present pile being very small in comparison, the tradition is that everyone takes turns opening gifts. This results in everyone else being done about half-way through this one sub-family's presents and all of us watching while they open (it's boring even for me honestly and I enjoy watching others get their gifts more than I usually do opening my own - it just gets to be long) and it is especially long for the other children who are waiting to enjoy their new stuff.
My husband and I don't believe in heaping gifts, nor do we think it is our right to ask them not to, but how do we handle the situation with our own child?
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Would it be possible to go ahead and allow the other kids to go ahead and start enjoying their presents while this one set of cousins continues to open their presents? I mean, it seems ridiculous to me that one family is allowed to monopolize the time of everyone else because their parents are spoiling them rotten (ok, maybe they're not, but it certainly seems like they're doing something like that--or overcompensating). It seems pretty clear to me that at the point where this one family is the only one opening presents, "family" present opening time is over.
Is there a reason why everyone else MUST watch them opening their remaining presents? Is it just so everyone else can Ooo and Ah over their presents with them? Judging from your comment above, you are not going to be able to change the way that family does things. So the only thing you can do is change what YOU and your family do (and I get the whole family politics thing. I have 3 sisters-in-law and 5 nieces and nephews all between the ages of 2 and 6).
Perhaps when it becomes clear that "family" opening is over, you allow your daughter to open one quiet toy/book/whatever that she can play with while her cousins finish opening their presents. The rule is she gets to open one, she can't be loud, and the rest of the presents can be opened once her cousins are done. Or, if you're concerned that just doing it will offend others, maybe looking directly at the cousin's mom and saying,"You know, (insert daughter's name) has been really looking forward to getting x for Christmas. If you don't care, I'm going to go ahead and let her open it while you all finish up."
That way, you're sort of asking permission, but not really. I mean what is she going to say? No, I want to be everyone's focus of attention? If she says that, then there are other issues at play here. I'm not saying you just mentally check out, I'm just saying that you don't necessarily provide them with your undivided attention. Go get some eggnog, check out your presents. Start flipping through that new book you got. Whatever.
Another thought is maybe when family opening time is going on, when you're going around opening presents one at a time, everyone first opens Grandma's gift then Grandpa's gift and so on until all of the presents given sort of universally are opened. That way the only presents left at the end are the ones given amongst that sub-family and no one else feels obligated to watch cause the outside-family gifts are all ready opened. Does that make any sense?
Talk to the parents beforehand Preferably sometime a days or weeks in advance, not ten minutes before they're leaving, discuss your concerns with sis in law. Explain your concerns: your kids feeling jealous, bored, less appreciative of their own gifts, etc. Obviously, your goal is not to stifle your sis in law's generosity (and make sure she knows this), but to help your sis in law teach her children to be more compassionate. You may want to specifically suggest some ideas on how to change the atmosphere. For example:
Have them only bring a subset of their children's gifts to the gathering, and perhaps they could open the rest at home, so everyone has a more-equal number of gifts.
Perhaps instead of making seperate piles for each child and then opening one gift each sequentially, you pull presents from under the tree at random, and if her kids open two or three presents in a row, whatever, at least everyone will finish closer to the same time.
Perhaps a time-limit to group present opening, at which point the children may choose whether they'd rather go play with their gifts or continue watching opening of any remaining gifts.
Or do something similiar at whatever point most relatives have run out of piles, allow anyone who would like to be excused go play while those who want to stay till the bitter end watching opening presents time do so.
Perhaps limit the gifts opened at the family event to only those going between families, and save all the santa presents and mom/dad presents for home.
If money isn't the concern just buy them more presents and just because they would be getting more stuff doesn't mean that you also can't teach them to appriciate it. They only get one childhood
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