Frankly, the “tell everyone to buy really raunchy gifts to shock your future MIL” thing sucks. It’s just plain mean. What - it’s three hours of your life you won’t get back - so what? What exactly did you have planned for that afternoon? Curing cancer? Suck it up, and be gracious. And being gracious includes not setting up your MIL for embarrassment. Grow up for crying out loud.
I don’t know why, but this whole thread is really pissing me off.
[QUOTE=ZipperJJ]
What I get tired of the most about showers is that as a single woman, I am doomed to ponying up for gifts all the damn time. My brother doesn’t have to buy gifts for anyone (well, now I suspect maybe he does since he has a wife who’d be invited to family showers). My male cousins don’t have to buy gifts for anyone. My dad doesn’t have to buy gifts for anyone.
[/QUOTE]
Stop going! Although I know how it is - the SO’s brother and SIL have had:
3 wedding showers (work, family, friends) luckily I didn’t have to do to all of these
a baby shower
a baby banquet after baby was born
christmas came a month after she was born
and she will soon turn one
I don’t plan to ever have kids and I’m beginning to feel the bite of constantly giving and getting nothing back. I am NOT whining - I haven’t even mentioned this to anyone until now - but I got nothing for Christmas from them last year. (They were supposed to give money and plumb forgot). I absolutely understand the baby was fresh and all. I just hope it’s not a habitual thing.
Other than them, though, I manage to avoid every other shower I’m invited to.
[QUOTE=Missy2U]
Frankly, the “tell everyone to buy really raunchy gifts to shock your future MIL” thing sucks. It’s just plain mean. What - it’s three hours of your life you won’t get back - so what? What exactly did you have planned for that afternoon? Curing cancer? Suck it up, and be gracious. And being gracious includes not setting up your MIL for embarrassment. Grow up for crying out loud.
I don’t know why, but this whole thread is really pissing me off.
[/QUOTE]
I am a remarkably patient man. I can’t prove that, you’ll just have trust me. I use to tutor college math for athletes who should have never passed grammar school and was know for being able to work with anyone until the understood no matter how long it took while keeping a smile. I never get angry. Yet, the shear nightmare of having gone to one of these was enough that I said NEVER AGAIN. I don’t make excuses now, I just say that I loathe the whole thing and I don’t care what cutesy crap you have planned, I’m out. There is no way I am sitting around and smiling at someone opening gifts and pretending to be surprised and happy despite her knowing exactly what was in it because she had made out a list of what you WOULD get months in advance and saw when the store marked off the item. Just tell me how much I am supposed to send and I will send an envelope with cash. That will have exactly the same amount of thought and care put into it as every other gift you get that day has.
Thus, I have a great deal of sympathy for someone being forced into one of these purgatories and no sympathy for the person forcing it on her to satisfy their own sense of propriety. Skewering that propriety seems like poetic justice.
[QUOTE=Flea]
She has to meet a certain spending minimum, apparently, and I told them they didn’t have to buy gifts. Now they feel obligated to, I suppose, same as I would in their position.
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But why did your friends have to the seat-fillers? Personally, I’d be a little upset to find out I was invited to a shower just because my friend needed warm-bodies to smooth over family politics, I have enough politics in my own family to deal with, some of which involves buying presents.
But I’m sensitive to these things, I’ve been the warm body more than few times at these sorts of events. I’m sure your friends are more gracious than myself.
[QUOTE=flight]
Thus, I have a great deal of sympathy for someone being forced into one of these purgatories and no sympathy for the person forcing it on her to satisfy their own sense of propriety. Skewering that propriety seems like poetic justice.
[/QUOTE]
But it’s unnecessarily mean. “Let’s embarrass the hell out of MIL” - and it will, because I’m sure she’ll have family there - that’s ridiculously childish and spiteful. If Flea has this much of an aversion to having a shower, then she should not have agreed to go along with it in the first place. This is obviously quite important to her MIL, so for crying out loud, suck it up and act like an adult.
[QUOTE=Flea]
I stated several times I was all right without one and frankly did not enjoy them, so her insistence on throwing one (and her subsequent complaints about the expenses) is actually quite rude of her.
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I agree completely and what this amounts to is a bridal shower for her, not for you, not for your husband to be. She wants it and she wants to be able to play the martyr for it. The long suffering mother/mother in law and look at all she does for you.
You’re right to be gracious and just do what’s asked of you. Not just right, it’s the only thing you can do, anything else could send in law relations down a very bad road.
So, decide you’re going to go and enjoy the day. Enjoy the people you’re with. No need to suffer through it. Attitude is a big part of making any event enjoyable. Remember the final scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian
“Always look on the bright side of life”
:whistles:
I loathe attention, so I could have thottled my mother for inviting 40 of her closest friends and a sprinkling of my acquaintances to my baby shower. There were so many gifts and games, that it lasted 4 hours…2 of which involved all eyes on my while I opened the gifts. ::shudder:: I was so nervous before, that I had a mild anxiety attack.
Now, that has opened me up to reciprocating. I have to attend my cousin’s bridal shower and give her a gift, too. She’s a doctor and I’m paying for daycare. She’s going to love my $20 Target gift card. :rolleyes:
I never had a bridal shower. We eloped. That’s how much we hate attention.
You don’t have to open the gifts at the shower.
I’ll repeat it again, shouting this time–
YOU DON’T HAVE TO OPEN THE GIFTS AT THE SHOWER!
Sitting there while someone opens presents is boring, annoying, awkward, and the whole display is, IMHO, tacky as can be. Remove that element, and you just have a party. Whether it’s a fun party or a boring party depends on the usual factors, but by not opening gifts, at least you know it won’t be an excruciating party.
After the guests leave, then the bride and a few close friends and/or family members can open the presents in a calm and organized fashion, and actually get to enjoy it!
[QUOTE=Green Bean]
You don’t have to open the gifts at the shower.
I’ll repeat it again, shouting this time–
YOU DON’T HAVE TO OPEN THE GIFTS AT THE SHOWER!
Sitting there while someone opens presents is boring, annoying, awkward, and the whole display is, IMHO, tacky as can be. Remove that element, and you just have a party. Whether it’s a fun party or a boring party depends on the usual factors, but by not opening gifts, at least you know it won’t be an excruciating party.
After the guests leave, then the bride and a few close friends and/or family members can open the presents in a calm and organized fashion, and actually get to enjoy it!
[/QUOTE]
No, because the people who like these things and bring their gifts want you to open them at the party so everyone can see what a great gift they bought. These people will actively complain: “aren’t you going to open your gifts? waa!”
Not that I think you should listen, but I know these whiners, too.
Seriously baby showers are for first time babies. And I don’t really even like them for that all the time. Baby showers should generally for people who genuinely can’t afford the things they need. It irks me to see people whose parents are helping them, who don’t pay rent because they live in one or another’s parents’ house, who thus have childcare right there, and who make good money, and they STILL hold showers, not just as parties, but to get gifts. You have the money!
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
No, because the people who like these things and bring their gifts want you to open them at the party so everyone can see what a great gift they bought. These people will actively complain: “aren’t you going to open your gifts? waa!”
[/QUOTE]
I have to agree with this. There is going to be pressure to open the gifts in front of everyone, and I doubt Flea will be able to get out of it. But hey, it’s PRESENTS for god’s sake, just open them and smile, try not to be too self-conscious. Just think, this will be all over soon, and at the end of it, you’ll be married and you won’t have to go through it again… until your baby shower. 
[QUOTE=Flea]
She has to meet a certain spending minimum, apparently, and I told them they didn’t have to buy gifts. Now they feel obligated to, I suppose, same as I would in their position.
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I sympathize (I had to endure a MIL’s shower and was told by one of MIL’s [del]crones[/del] friends that she was sure I didn’t remember what she had given me–this at the end of the party with 40+ gifts opened. I looked her in the eye and thanked her AGAIN for the knife set. Bitch). MIL also called me and said I had sent out my thank you notes too soon. WTH?
But this comment re spending minimum makes no sense, unless she has hired a hall or caterer.
I don’t like the porn gifts one bit. Thing is–you will be playing right into her hands. I don’t know if she is resentful of you or actively hostile (as was mine-still is, really), but this will ONLY give her fodder for her martyrdom. It’s just not good sense, no matter how tempting. It will backfire on you FOR YEARS.
And since the purpose of the shower is for you to be “showered” with gifts, it makes no sense to not open them. Would you rather be making toilet paper wedding gowns? :dubious:
Grit your teeth, grin and bear it. And make sure you define your boundaries from here on out (and make sure you have your fiancee’s support in this). Inlaws can ruin a marriage-I know from experience. Good luck.
An acquaintance of ours (Whom I refuse to call a friend, because she’s a sleazy, moronic, spiteful hanger-on… and that’s her better character traits…) is 48. She’s going on her second wedding this summer, to a 27 year old.
She’s having the BIG white/church wedding, including the shower that a friend of ours was invited to at a club nearby, where the guests were ‘invited’ to help defray the costs of the “wonderful meal we have planned for you!!”
Balls. Big. Big. Balls.
[QUOTE=flight]
Thus, I have a great deal of sympathy for someone being forced into one of these purgatories and no sympathy for the person forcing it on her to satisfy their own sense of propriety. Skewering that propriety seems like poetic justice.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks, I appreciate it. It’s curious to me how many folk that harp about propriety and graciousness fail to notice the only complaining I have done about this has been on an online forum and in private to my fiancé (who shares my views), and also neglect to notice that she pretty much elected to do this without a thought to my preference, desire, or comfort.
[QUOTE=sugar and spice]
But why did your friends have to the seat-fillers? Personally, I’d be a little upset to find out I was invited to a shower just because my friend needed warm-bodies to smooth over family politics, I have enough politics in my own family to deal with, some of which involves buying presents
[/QUOTE]
At least one of them is doing it for moral support, because she’s very kind that way. Two wished I didn’t and will split a $40 gift and eat the food and laugh at me while they do it. The last one is the one who is truly bitter that I’m having it, but I told her just not to come. She’s doing it out of the same sense of obligation I am, and so I understand her, but these gals run in a pack and so I didn’t want to offend her by leaving her out since she still has the option of saying no.
[QUOTE=Missy2U]
If Flea has this much of an aversion to having a shower, then she should not have agreed to go along with it in the first place. This is obviously quite important to her MIL, so for crying out loud, suck it up and act like an adult.
[/QUOTE]
I didn’t agree to go along with it. She brought it up twice in the early stages of the engagement and I told her twice that I didn’t want it, quite nicely but emphatically, then told me she was planning one. I am sucking it up and acting like an adult, but I can still Pit the institution of Showers to my heart’s content, so you suck it.
[QUOTE=velvetjones]
So, decide you’re going to go and enjoy the day. Enjoy the people you’re with. No need to suffer through it. Attitude is a big part of making any event enjoyable.
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What, I can’t enjoy making fun of it? If I mock it, my enjoyment can begin immediately!
I know I can’t get out of it, and I’ll be gracious, although I refuse to write thank-you notes (I never even read mine and they all went in the trash).Although it might be fun to come up with something silly, like “Thank you for the monkey. Not only can he juggle, but he may know sign language.”
I have to agree that shower presents should be opened at the shower. Some people put a fair amount of effort into buying fun presents and clever wrapping, they want to show off their creative ideas. And for baby showers, people will sew clothes and blankets and such, its nice to let them enjoy a few oohs and aahs. Given that guests were outright ASKED to bring a present to the party, I don’t thinks its unreasonable to indulge them.
-sugar, who had the only homemade bibs at Sunday’s shower 
Okay, my mom made them, but it still counts.
[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
But this comment re spending minimum makes no sense, unless she has hired a hall or caterer.
[/quote]
Yup. Both. At one point I suggested a barbeque, but that wasn’t nice enough.
We had that chat the other day and it went fantastically. He acknowledged that I have never treated her with anything other than courtesy and respect, and he admitted that the wedding had brought out contention that was possibly due to her cultural expectations of me, and he hoped to see it gone after the wedding. He said most discussions were averted b/c they were temporary, but since this was an ongoing project, they were more difficult to avoid. He’s being wonderful about it, very supportive.
[QUOTE=Shecky]
As an aside, what is it with women holding showers for either a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc child or (my own personal pet peeve) a bridal shower for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th wedding.
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I thought it was considered a societal no-no for women to have baby showers beyond the first one! Not to mention the sheer quantities of baby junk you’ll have around. God knows that after we had our son, there were onesies coming out of my ears. I can’t imagine having another baby shower and getting more!
Same for the additional showers for the additional weddings - how many damn place settings and new appliances can you handle?
In both situations, it seems like you might as well just start asking for cash.
For the record, I would have LOVED not to have had any wedding or baby showers, but my mom wanted to throw me one and so did my best friend. Same for my baby shower - my mom wanted to have one, so did my best friend and so did work. It was waaaayyy too much.
I insisted on not having a bridal shower, partly because I hate hate hate opening presents in front of people. I can’t understand most nonverbal communication, so I don’t really know how to make myself look excited and not disappointed about a gift. Even if I am happy about it, I might not look like it, just because I don’t do nonverbal communication. I’m not very demonstrative, either- I don’t ooh and ahh over a present, even if I do like it very much, and it’s rather exhausting to have to keep reminding myself to do it.
I also think I might have died of embarrassment if anyone had given me anything even hinting of slightly risque in front of my future mother-in-law or (worse) my mother, or if they had played any of those “here’s what you’re going to say on the wedding night” type shower games.
[QUOTE=Missy2U]
But it’s unnecessarily mean. “Let’s embarrass the hell out of MIL” - and it will, because I’m sure she’ll have family there - that’s ridiculously childish and spiteful. If Flea has this much of an aversion to having a shower, then she should not have agreed to go along with it in the first place. This is obviously quite important to her MIL, so for crying out loud, suck it up and act like an adult.
[/QUOTE]
I hear ya. It’s just not cool.
I’m against showers in general. Baby showers, I can kind of see because who doesn’t like to buy tiny little clothes? But I hate the idea of registration and all the tacky greed that goes with it.
I saw a thing recently…the new trend for wedding showers is that everyone gets together and commits an act of charity. I think a doper couple did it, actually. Most couples have everything they need and have jobs. It’s not like the olden days when couples moved from their parents homes directly to the marriage abode.
Let’s do something worthwhile with our time and money. Most in-laws should understand. Only acquiesce if it will keep peace in the family.
[QUOTE=overlyverbose]
I thought it was considered a societal no-no for women to have baby showers beyond the first one! Not to mention the sheer quantities of baby junk you’ll have around. God knows that after we had our son, there were onesies coming out of my ears. I can’t imagine having another baby shower and getting more!
[/QUOTE]
This assumes the babies are born close together. I was given two baby showers, but only because my children are 7 years apart and I had nothing even resembling baby gear for the second child. I could have lived without either shower though, I hate being the center of attention.
[QUOTE=Missy2U]
This is obviously quite important to her MIL
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Getting to eat ice cream and not eat veggies is obviously quite important to the average three-year-old, and yet we find ways to make it clear that we will not accomodate that urge.