My Christmas/In-Law Rant

In this time of economic recession and over-consumerism, it's often difficult to teach children the true meaning of Christmas. We try hard to get the message to our children that the Christmas season is not about Santa Claus, getting lots of presents and being in toy-heaven. Rather that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, and the fun stuff is about spending time with family, and thinking about a special gift for someone, and focusing on those who are not as fortunate as us. For example, this year we have sponsored a child in Rwanda through World Vision.
And here is my rant...
Every year, my in-laws go overboard on Christmas gifts for the kids. We have asked them every year, more than once, to not purchase so many gifts. We have asked them repeatedly to refrain themselves and purchase one or two gifts for the kids. And every year, our requests fall on deaf years. We have always only purchased two gifts for each child. This has never changed.
Now picture this - we went to the mother-in-law's for Christmas celebration yesterday. We brought the gifts that we had selected for the nieces and nephew and grandmother. They brought over their gifts. Before the unwrapping, the children spent several hours playing together. We partook in a meal. And then madness started.
They brought out gifts only for our children. The reasoning being that the cousins would visit Grandma on Christmas Eve and receive their gifts then. So, for the next 40 minutes, our 3 children opened present after present. It got to the point, that they would rip off the wrapping paper, take a look at the toy, and toss it into the corner. The pile of new toys grew higher and higher. Apparently when we asked them to select one action figure or one My Little Pony, they understood that to mean one in every colour or model! It was gluttony at its best. (I shuddered to think of the trees that had been sacrificed to make the wrapping paper.) When they each unwrapped the one non-toy gift, we made a big deal of the Superhero and Princess underwear. We try to teach our children to be enthusiastic of whatever gift they receive. They did get excited, because such little gifts are cool too. (This morning, Devlin dropped his pants to show me which superhero underwear he was wearing.)
After our children had demolished their mountain of toys, the cousins unwrapped their meager gifts that we had brought. While we had taken some time to put some thought into the gifts, we looked horribly cheap in comparison. The looks of disappointment were evident on their faces. And if you were a kid, could you blame them?
By this time, both my husband and I were quite upset. Not that we want to seem ungracious for their efforts, but clearly our requests that they refrain from spoiling our children had been rebuffed. It was more than mere spoiling too. I counted about 12-15 gifts that each of my children received. That's more than they'll get on Christmas day from us as parent, Santa Claus, and my family. Whatever message we were trying to teach our children about Christmas was taken from us, stomped on, and thrown out the window. We felt undermined as parents and disrespected as individuals. Also, what if we had also had gotten some of the same gifts for our children? Since we're not showering our children with nearly as many gifts, how will our children perceive us on Christmas day?
They received so many gifts. It seemed to be utterly selfish and irresponsible to keep them all. I know they had some of those same toys at home already too. Under the guise of putting away the gifts in the car, I removed about a third of the gifts and placed them in a large garbage bag for the charity toy drive. When we got home, the kids didn't notice that they were missing anything. They were simply excited to play with the two toys we let them open up that night. (Another rant - what's with all the plastic and blister packaging on toy packages? Really, the packaging is adult-proof and so environmentally unfriendly!)
There, I've said my piece about my in-laws. I'm thankful that other family members are more reasonable, sensible about their gift-giving, and I can only hope that somehow, we'll be able to salvage the true message of Christmas for our children. And maybe boycott Christmas with the in-laws next year?