Is it ok to have personalized gifts that don’t include every family member?

Imagine creating a photo book as a gift for a family member. Would you include pictures of everyone in your family, or would you include pictures of just you and the family member you were giving the book to?

This Redditor’s struggles to maintain peace with her mother after she creates a photo book with just her grandmother and herself.

Read the story below to see why this sweet gift idea is creating so much drama.

AITA for making a photo book of JUST me & my grandmother?

My (F21) paternal grandmother (F79) will be turning 80 in a month and a half, and I thought it would be a nice idea to do something with photos as a present.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about what the pictures should be of and how to present them and have decided on one of those create your own photo books things online with photos of just myself and my grandmother, to showing me growing up and our experiences together and all the fond memories we have.

I’ve spent hours going through my camera roll, both my parents camera rolls, my nanna’s and my parents’ Facebook.

The OP sifted through multiple sources.

My parents had a Dropbox with older photos from backups and SD cards, boxes of printed photos, and [I] tried to be sneaky and ask my nanna for photos she had of us because, “I’d never seen them” or “I didn’t remember.”

[I] even tried to throw her off the scent entirely by making her think her only present is me taking her to a musical like we did when I was a kid.

She even added a personal touch.

I’ve also spent hours putting them all together online and making them look pretty, putting them in order, using her favourite colours, everything.

It’s practically done unless I find more photos.

My point of this rant is ALL the time and effort my mum (55F) has watched me put in to this. Just for her to tell me today that, “I feel wrong that it’s just you in the photo book, shouldn’t it be everyone?”

So, the OP breaks it down — is including the whole family possible?

To put that idea into perspective for you guys, my nanna had 4 sons, all with partners, and 8 grandchildren — which is a lot of people to cover.

The complicated parts:

– She doesn’t speak to her ex-husband and father of her children, so we’d have to exclude him from the book.

– One of her children died middle aged, so it’s important to include him (if we do a book on everyone), but also makes what I wanted to be a happy book a sad one

Not to mention the most awkward part…

– And my immediate family had a falling-out with part of the family, so I’d awkwardly have to get in touch with people I haven’t spoken to in at least 5 years (and quite frankly don’t like) just to complete this monster book.

I also don’t have a lot of money, and the more pages you add the more expensive it gets.

I’m already paying for expensive seats for the musical.

A little gift has blown up into a big ordeal.

This was just meant to be a cute cheap extra that I paid for mostly with my time.

In the end, I’m just not sure it’s my mother’s place to comment when it’s not her mother’s 80th birthday; it’s my dad’s (55M).

So, AITA for not wanting to do a photobook with every member of my father’s family?

So, should the OP bend to her mother’s wishes? Let’s read the comments below to see what Reddit thinks on the matter.

People, overwhelmingly, said NTA.

And others said this was about a personal relationship.

They also said that if the rest of the family wanted to, they would.

Finally, one Redditor made a fun movie reference.

This mother has no right to make this woman feel guilty about her grandmother’s gift.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.