My mom gave me chores for Christmas

wisingup · February 07, 2021, 03:57:12 PM

My uBPDm lives a couple hours drive from me & we didn't see her or any extended family for Christmas this year due to the pandemic. Everyone ordered gifts online & had them delivered to people's homes. It was pretty confusing figuring out who had sent what, but that's just the way it had to be this year.

The only exception was my mom, who apparently had everything sent to her home & had my brother (who lives closer to her) come and pick everything up from her - a 2-hour round trip for him. I was then supposed to then go to his house (another 2-hour round trip) to pick up the gifts for myself & kids and then mail the gifts for my older daughter to her across the country. It just occurred to me how ridiculous this is in order to pick up a sweater or something that could have been sent directly to my home & directly to my daughter. Instead, I get a 2-hour drive & an additional chore to pack up my daughter's gift & take it to the post office.

I haven't done it yet, and frankly I probably won't until such time as I could at least enter my brother's home & hang out for a while, or meet for lunch instead of just doing a long drive. My daughter can get her gift in the summer if/when she can visit.

Just venting a bit - thanks for listening!

Cat of the Canals · February 07, 2021, 04:12:18 PM

What is it with PDs and gifts? There are always strings attached or hoops to jump through.

My unBPD mil loved to use gifts as an excuse to either try to get us to visit or drop in on us unannounced. "Well, I had to bring you this [random dollar store item you absolutely don't need.]"

Jolie40 · February 07, 2021, 04:42:15 PM

Quote from: wisingup on February 07, 2021, 03:57:12 PM
It just occurred to me how ridiculous this is

RIDICULOUS is the right word!

couple yrs ago, PD parent asked us to buy couple gifts for our child for them to give on Christmas
so we did & brought them over for PD parent to wrap

then I get email they lost gifts, looked everywhere & decided gifts were thrown away
then we were blamed for delivering them too early before Christmas!!!

yep, as SG, my fault they threw gifts away
RIDICULOUS, also

Liketheducks · February 07, 2021, 05:16:59 PM

Your subject's title made me laugh out loud. Yes, totally had so many similar experiences.
My top 3:
1. You didn't tell me we were exchanging gifts today. (It's Christmas Day and I made dinner.....ummmm OK?!)
2. I feel so guilty, we didn't send anything.
3. Your birthday is today?! - from Mom, while I was a kid.

Thru the Rain · February 07, 2021, 05:30:35 PM

DH and I started dating as teenagers. And as we spent more and more time together, we got to meet each other's extended families.

When I met his grandparents - in August! - they had a Christmas present for him. I was really confused! I thought it was pretty early for a Christmas present.

Oh no, they explained. Since their grandson hadn't bothered to see them over Christmas, they just held onto the gift until he ***finally*** came to visit.

Since they were the adults (presumably) in the relationship, shouldn't they have been the one's to make the effort? I mean, we're talking about a kid here. His grandparents lived an hour away and he didn't have a car.

So instead of a nice present at Christmas, he got a dose of guilt along with a scratchy sweater in August.

Ladymm · February 08, 2021, 07:07:14 AM

We decided no gifts this year because of covid, bu my narc parents HAD to buy us gifts, because they like to have me stuck with materialistic stuff.

I was totally expecting it, but it was annoying nonetheless.

Sneezy · February 08, 2021, 10:32:55 AM

So the virus has been good for a few things. This past Christmas, I finally put my foot down and said "no" to Mom's Christmas chores. She wanted me to drive her to the bank and go in with her so she could get certified checks to give as gifts to the grandkids. Nope, too dangerous to go indoors, so she just wrote personal checks which is fine. Then she wanted me to drive her to the drug store so could buy amazon gift cards, followed by a drive to the Dollar Tree to get Christmas cards. Again nope - she ended up ordering gift cards directly from amazon and having them shipped. And so on and so on. Now that I look at this past Christmas compared to others, I am finally realizing how much of her Christmas gifting became excuses for her to delegate chores to me and have me drive her around. That ended in 2020!

Call Me Cordelia · February 08, 2021, 11:08:05 AM

Yeah this is really familiar. How many of us have had parents have us do all the work and take all the credit?

The worst though, was my own Pd grandparents. They gave my mother (their DIL) $20 for all of us, she would go and choose, purchase, wrap, write on the gift, "From Grandma and Grandpa," and then coach us kids in advance how we were to react with joy when we unwrapped it. And she always spent way more than $20, because their gift always had to be multiple gifts. But they didn't care what it actually was, or what we liked, or anything like that. Just so it was a lot. We kids always knew what the procedure was and that the whole thing was a show.

I was always a bit of a subversive SG, even as a kid. I remember trying to explain to my grandma how I was going to use "her" gift (art supplies of some kind) and she just Did. Not. Care. I knew it was a show for her so I decided to show her one better and pretend I didn't notice that the show was over and just kept on doing crafts with grandma. It was oddly sadistic of me. She was sooo uncomfortable.

wisingup · February 08, 2021, 04:06:34 PM

Lol, thanks for the replies everyone. It looks like this is a common theme. Here are some more thoughts I had:
1. The inconvenience to my brother and I either didn't occur to her or she didn't care, OR it was a sort of a test - not sure which
2. She'll be annoyed with me and act like a victim when she learns that I haven't bothered to pick up the gifts yet.

Fiasco · February 08, 2021, 06:07:17 PM

We still haven't gotten a gift from BPDm this year, which sounds like no big deal, but you know it can't be that simple. I've grey rocked her in recent years, saying things like "it's your gift, give (recipient) whatever makes you happy" instead of holding her hand, picking things out for her to give, which she never effing gets anyway because shockingly things get sold out when you wait until Dec 22 to shop. My punishment the last few years for refusing to play the "begging for gifts" game is I don't get any. Who cares? But this year she's dragged my kids into it too.

Christmas week was the martyr act, how she'd stayed up ALL NIGHT getting our gift ready to mail out. How you stay up all night writing a couple of checks to put in a card I don't know. Then was the drama that they didn't get to our house on time, even though she mailed them Dec freaking 23rd, duh. Then they still didn't come, which resulted in multiple daily texts worrying about the missing checks which I would not answer because I told her multiple times I would call if they arrived. Then (God help me) the envelope actually arrived! It was a month late, and she lied when she claimed she mailed it before Christmas as the postmark was several days after.

So now wouldn't you know we're playing games over these MFing checks as I write this. She can't remember if she canceled them (she did, I checked) and simultaneously can't remember if she mailed replacements (she didn't)! My kids are tweens and teens and are aware of the ongoing drama, because I present it as hilarious. It is hilarious, except it's driving me up a wall. I want to scream! Let's all scream! And then send each other small, timely, thoughtful, tasteful, personal gifts next year. Ugh!!!!!