Woman Doesn't Want to Use In-Laws' Christmas Money the Way They Intended, but Worries About Upsetting Them, Too

Mar. 15, 2025

A family at Christmas opening presents in a stock photo.Photo: Getty Images

Are you the grandparent of a homeschooled kid or two? Are you wracking your brain for gift ideas that are more useful than toys that may be discarded by January? This gift-giving guide is for you! Maybe your grandchildren won’t get as excited about some of these items as they would about the latest action figure or the most popular doll, but these are gifts that they can use and enjoy all year long – and they just may find, as they year goes on, that they’re more fun than the latest fad toys after all. 1. Memberships. If your grandchildren live a zoo, aquarium, art museum, children’s museum, or a similar venue, consider purchasing a family membership. When my kids were younger, we loved such memberships, but couldn’t always afford them ourselves. A family membership to these sorts of places mean something fun to do in the cold weather months, year-long access to changing exhibits, and an educational option for those days when the whole family just needs to put the books aside and get out of the house for awhile. 2. Subscription services. There are subscription services for just about every subject these days – geography, science, history, baking, and so much more. Kids love receiving a package in the mail each month and many subscriptions are not only fun, but provide an educational springboard for further study. Some services to consider include: Little Passport History Unboxed The Magic School Bus Club The World’s Most Fascinating Rock Collection Raddish Kids Kiwi Crate GiftLit The Young Scientists Club BabbaBox Tinker Crate 3. Magazine subscriptions. A magazine subscription is another gift that will bring excitement to your grandchild throughout the year. There are dozens of wonderful, educational magazine choices for kids, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you have to choose something overtly educational. Most homeschooling moms would agree that nearly anything that gets kids reading enthusiastically and voluntarily is a great choice, so feel free to select a subscription based purely on your grandchild’s interests. 4. Big-ticket items. Homeschool families don’t have school fundraisers (though the thought has crossed my mind from time to time), so funding big-ticket purchases can be difficult. Consider purchasing things like: Microscope A graphing calculator Quality science lab equipment, such as beakers, test tubes, or even lab kits that go along with your grandchild’s science text. Home Science Tools is a good source for these items. I remember one time my dad and stepmom purchased a huge timeline set for my family. We were so excited because it was an extra whose cost we couldn’t justify at the time, but one that we really wanted and was versatile enough for many years’ use. Depending on your budget, you may even be able to purchase really big-ticket items such as a computer, laptop, or tablet as a family gift. 5. Art supplies. You’d be surprised at how quickly the cost of quality art supplies can add up. Delight your grandkids with quality supplies (not those on the school supply aisle at your local big box store) such as: Paints and brushes Markers Chalks or oils Canvases Sketch books, watercolor paper, or mixed media paper Kneadable erasers Pencils Canvases 6. Class or athletic fees. Check with the teaching parent to see if there are classes your grandchildren would like to take or sports in which they’d like to participate that aren’t in the family budget. Pay pay the associated fee (the class, itself, registration, equipment or supply fees) for Christmas. 7. Curriculum. Finally, there may not be too many kids who would be terribly excited about getting school books for Christmas, but curriculum can get very expensive very quickly. If there is a particular program that would spark your grandchild’s interest, he may thank you later for helping to make the switch. There may also be fun extras that your grandkids would enjoy, such as electives, that would be appreciated and enjoyed throughout the year.

As she explains in aRedditpost. the woman has been married to her husband for nearly eight years, and the couple has three kids under the age of 7.

“My husband’s family lives a 4 hour flight from us and in a location that is very difficult to travel to at Christmas time so it’s long been established that we don’t travel to them at Christmas time, and there are no hard feelings about this at all,” she shares.

Since they aren’t together, the woman’s mother-in-law sends a check to the couple each year, asking them to use it to purchase gifts for their family on her behalf.

“We always use this money for gifts for the kids, and we always tell the kids that those gifts are from their grandparents,” the woman adds. “Honestly because it’s a lump sum it has been really great to get a larger ticket gift for them to share (as an example, we used it one year to buy them a Nugget play couch - something we otherwise wouldn’t have given them as a gift).”

But a couple of years ago, the woman’s mother-in-law “clarified that the money is also intended to be enough for my husband and I to buy gifts for each other ‘from them.’ "

“This is honestly just lower priority for us, and we told her one year that we don’t need much for ourselves and had just used the money for the kids,” she writes. “My MIL wasn’t thrilled about this, and then last year when we were on FaceTime on Christmas morning, she asked us directly what gifts we had gotten each other from them. We both improvised and showed gifts that we had just bought for each other and went through a bit of a show of thanking them for these gifts. It felt a little silly.”

This year, the couple decided that they wanted to use the money to enroll their kids in ski camp, with the woman noting that the check will almost exactly cover the cost.

“I would just like to be honest with my in-laws that this is what we are doing with their gift money, instead of pretending that my husband and I are using it to get each other gifts too,” she writes, adding that she is worried that if she doesn’t at least pretend to have used the money to buy her husband a gift, his parents will be upset.

Commenting on the post, Reddit users say the woman should at least pretend to play along.

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“Just pick a present each year that you gave each other and pretend it came ‘from them.’ It’s not even really false, if you think about it since money is fungible. i.e. you could just as easily say that you used the in-law’s money to cover most of the cost for the ski camp, and you pitched in the rest, and that they ‘bought’ you the other thing,” writes one commenter.

The commenter adds: “This is what my family does and it’s always been easy enough, and I think it makes them happy to think me and my partner are enjoying ourselves as well. Basically, it’s a minor ask to let them preserve the happy fiction, so I don’t really see the need to push them on it.”

source: people.com

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