Holiday etiquette

marriednow06 · November 2008

Is this rude? I sent this email in response to my MIL because she requested us to bring an extra suitcase on the plane to bring back Christmas gifts. Backstory: I am not thrilled to spend Christmas away from home now that we have a child, but I agreed this year because DS is still too young to really know what is going on. Tickets were expensive, and there are six of us flying to her for the holidays from this area, instead of her coming out here. So imo the least she could do is ship the stuff she buys for DS to us. Is that wrong?

Thanks you have a good holiday as well. I am sure we will talk on Thursday!

Regarding the extra suitcase, depending on how much space our clothing takes up, we will probably work to ship stuff back to DC after Christmas instead of bringing it on the plane. This is midwest Express' baggage policy (yikes, lol):

$15 each way (nonstop or connect) for the first piece of checked baggage.
$25 each way (nonstop or connect) for the second piece of checked baggage
$100 each way (nonstop or connect) for each piece exceeding the second.

So as you can see it may get a little expensive on top of clothing for the week for three of us, etc to bring an extra suitcase just for gifts. The gifts I plan to give XX for Christmas are smaller ones that should not cost much to ship and I will give him larger items after Christmas when we get home. With the economy suffering, I guess the airlines are trying to recover costs anyway possible.

Just to clarify, I didn't directly ask her to ship the gifts that she buys him or us, but I am hoping that she offers to take care of it. dd

jessawakawaii · November 2008

you are the absolute spirit of politeness IMO. nothing rude or pushy about that email. i wholeheartedly agree that she should fly to you for future holidays, lol.

kmpls · November 2008

Your email seems fine.

But to clarify about the suitcases - It is $15 for the first bag for each ticketed passenger. So, if you have 2 ticketed (I am not sure if you buy a ticket for child or not) then it is $15 for each person's first bag, for each leg. So for 2 bags for the 2 of you if would be $60 roundtrip total.

marriednow06 · November 2008

True, it is just whether we can stick to one bag each. We are going for approx a week to an area that will have snow and require a lot of heavy clothing, shoes, etc, including attire to go out, so we have to be careful not to overstuff the two bags because the overweight bag charge is outrageous, lol.

bunnybean · November 2008

I think you were really polite. That is kind of an outrageous request!

NWBecca · November 2008

You dealt with that perfectly.

Sibil · November 2008

Now, this was before the baggage charge, but 2 years ago, my parents had me buy my gifts and ship them to my home in Omaha (they reimbursed me on Christmas day). ?This was for warranty reasons since it was all computer parts to build a new one, so that part made sense. ?H was gone that month, so while it wasn't a surprise for me, it was for him. ?Then I had to pack it all up to bring home so we could wrap it and put it under the tree. ?H flew in xmas eve, we opened everything up, packed it up again, and brought it back to Omaha. ?My parents are kind of insane and a little too into the santa brings presents and puts them under the tree thing.

I think you were perfectly polite with your request. ?I wish I had thought to do the same. ?That was a heavy 55 pound bag, right at the limit of not being charged.?