A lot of families have certain traditions regarding how they usually celebrate Christmas.

The family in today’s story usually spends hours opening presents since they all sit around and take turns opening their gifts.

While there’s nothing wrong with this tradition, one couple is annoyed by how long it takes to open gifts.

They’d rather spend their time doing something else, but should they stick with the tradition anyway?

Let’s read all the details.

WIBTA if I don’t open presents with my partners family?

My partner and I (both in our 30s and have been together for 10 years) mostly interact with his side of the family since my family lives out of state.

His family consists of his two sisters—one who has a partner but no kids and the other who has two young kids (a 2-year-old and a 7-month-old).

His parents and his aunt are also there (9 adults)

It takes a long time to open all of the Christmas presents.

They’re a very gifting-oriented family, and for the past few Christmases I’ve spent with them, the tradition has been for everyone to take turns opening presents.

It’s a slow process that takes hours—last year, it took four hours because my sister-in-law had her first kid.

Since her toddler was too young to open presents himself, she opened them for him, pausing for photos, bickering with her husband, etc., while the rest of us just sat around waiting for our turn.

Now that she has two kids this year (a toddler and a baby), my husband and I are even more concerned about how long the process will take.

They’re the only ones in the family who are really inconvenienced.

On top of that, my husband and I live two hours away, and we can’t bring our pets with us or find anyone to watch them.

This means we can only stay for about 8 hours max.

Everyone else lives nearby except for my SIL without kids, but they stay over at my in-laws’ house since they can bring their pets.

Every year, we’re expected to leave our house at 6 or 7 a.m. to drive over, then sit through hours of gift-opening before finally eating.

They want to start a new tradition.

This year, my husband and I decided we’d like to have Christmas morning at our house instead.

We want to exchange gifts, listen to music, and have breakfast—basically, start building our own holiday traditions as a couple.

Afterward, we’d meet up with his family to exchange the family gifts.

Her mother-in-law didn’t seem to get the memo that things are different this year.

Interestingly, my SIL (the one with kids) actually suggested doing Secret Santa this year because they can’t afford to get gifts for everyone.

We agreed and mentioned how long the gift-opening process usually takes, and everyone seemed fine with that.

But now, a couple of days before Christmas, my MIL texted us saying we need to be at their house by 7 a.m. again—for presents, then breakfast, games, and dinner at 4 p.m. (basically the whole day).

She wants to enjoy her day off.

I was frustrated because this means leaving at 5 a.m., and I only have Christmas Day off from work.

Everyone else (except my BIL and FIL) has the whole week off.

When we pushed back and said we didn’t want to be there that early and suggested couples and kids open gifts at their own houses, she seemed clearly annoyed.

She’s not giving in to her mother-in-law’s demands this year.

She even made comments like, “The point is to spend time with family on Christmas,” as if we were trying to spend less time with them.

That’s not the case—we just don’t want all of our time to be spent on watching gifts being opened for hours, but can be spent actually interacting like games, or eating.

At this point, we told her that we planning to arrive at 10 a.m. instead and to have couples and the 2 kids open gifts before we get there.

So, Reddit, AITA for wanting to handle Christmas this way?

I don’t think she’s being unreasonable.

It might be hard for the mother-in-law to get used to a new tradition, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not okay to do things differently.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks the way they usually open presents sounds really boring.

Here’s another vote for changing the way they open presents.

This person calls the mother-in-law “difficult.”

Her husband should work this out with his family.

Here’s a suggestion to stay home until noon.

It shouldn’t take the whole morning to open presents.

But if it does, people should be able to opt out.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.