AIBU to wonder if we are unusual in never seeing adult children at Christmas?

YABU OP. When we were the "adult children" we never saw parents at Christmas. I made it a rule, in fact. We both had busy jobs, particularly my husband who often worked part of the holiday period. The last thing we wanted to do was drive 200 miles to hang out with the rellies - we wanted a rest. Lots of our friends were the same.

I wouldn't say you were unusual. My oldest DS lives and works several hours from us, and rarely gets decent blocks of annual leave over Christmas and new year. He hasn't been home for Christmas for several years. When he does get the chance, he will spend Christmas with his grandmother, but the increasing cost and unreliability of public transport is making this more difficult.

When our DC were young we would travel long distances across the country to spend Christmas with family while our grand parents were still alive. After they died, we and our parents enjoyed not having to travel and being able to enjoy Christmas at our respective homes.

Do you actually ask them?

Neither my parent or my ILs actually invite us which is also sad (various health and mental health issues) and we have no space and are at a distance so can't just pop by, would need to stay over. This has felt quite hurtful actually after my late Mum's death that nobody is bothered by seeing us either way.

I don't think your situation is unusual. All depends on distance, accomodation, costs, transport etc.

Our eldest son lives 7 hours drive time from us. Last Christmas, we were all together as we all went down to him. But he has a tiny house so we had to get a large holiday rental.

It was lovely but expensive of course. He has lived away from home 10 years at this distance. His partner's family are all local to them so it makes far more sense that they do always spend Christmas at their own home.

If they did travel up to see us, our house is full and they'd need to get accomodation. Plus the weather is a factor. Time off work. Etc. Just a lot for a day.

With my mum in law. She has 2 sons but only chooses to see us a Christmas. We are only ½ hour from her. Her other son is 3 hours away. And, similar to my own son, he has his wife's extended family all round where he lives so MIL would really need to go to him. She is 80 and doesn't want to travel.

People that say "my kids now have their own families" but they are your family too,

My grandma when she was alive and my mum now wouldn't ever not have Christmas with us.

Oh and one other thing - you want your step-DC to come to you - but as a middle-aged person I don't WANT to stay in my parents' spare room! They never went and stayed with their DPs when they were middle-aged (they lived close enough to visit for a few hours), but it's either stay with them or have to shell out £££££ for a cottage rental at Christmas time and neither is tempting.

You sound like a lovely person- and that you aren't expecting a lot. I do think most adults spend Christmas period visiting relatives - if not every year, then some of the year.

DSD clearly prefers to spend it with her mum- you mentioned proximity as a reason

DSS prefers sun at Christmas.

Could you travel to them one year?

Winter sun for Christmas?

Hotel near DSD and Christmas eve or a time on Christmas day?

For a lot of people, Christmas just isn't that important. I'm approx the same age as your step-DC. I live a 2-3 hour drive from my parents. I don't ever see them at Christmas. They would like to see us, they love Christmas, by the don't want to come to us (same reasons as you), and we have kids who want to be at home. If we didn't have kids, DH and I would go away for Christmas every single year.

Sorry, cross posted with your most recent replies. Completely understand about the one who goes abroad, but I still think you’re DH could acknowledge that and ask if there’s anyway they’d consider going on their sunshine break a little later so you could spend Christmas Day with them, just occasionally.

Ahhh! Apologies for misunderstanding the situation.

That sounds really sad for you @SoNiceToComeHomeTo .

I'd suggest asking them again and perhaps putting it out there that you would really like them to come and visit you this year. If they still refuse then there is nothing more you can do. I think using not liking where you live as an excuse is really quite mean of the DIL.

I'm the opposite in your situation, we never see our parents/in-laws at Christmas. We don't have kids either.

Reasons are that it's a distance to travel and we like to do things differently to them. I'm also at the age where I like to have control over things like what I eat and when, what I spend my time off doing, not being fussed over and "parented" (and sometimes criticised). All our parents like to sit and chat all day and I hate small talk, it drives me insane. I like to be doing things, or if I'm chilling out I like to be properly chilling out - I can't relax with them around.

But I think it's a natural thing as your kids get older, my partner has lots of siblings who live near to his parents and these days they nip in for an hour or two to say hi and drop off presents, but they don't spend the best part of two days straight there like they used to.

Ah, that’s a shame OP. Could your DH speak to them and say, look, we know you have lots of competing priorities at Christmas, but it has been a while since we saw you over Christmas and we’d really love to spend the day with you at some point, any chance you’d consider coming to us next year?

or could you invite them to a ‘fake’ Christmas earlier in December? Tree, presents, turkey, whatever and make that a bit of a fun thing?

OP are you working or are you retired? A lot of older people seem to expect young people to come and visit them rather than the other way around but when you have worked a 40hr week and are tired often its quite a chore being expected to travel to visit older relatives

Also agree with this, we moved away and this seems to have put some unsaid expectation that we are to travel to them. We have a young family, busy working lives, limited annual leave, and it costs a lot of travel because none of them have the space for us to stay, plus the pain of just sitting in living rooms talking, it's just not how I want to spend my time. So it is limited, and it is NOT at Christmas which should be for having fun.

Not saying any of that is applicable to you OP, it's just that reply resonated with me.

I think it is very unusual and also very sad. I think your DH should tell them that he misses family Christmas and specifically invite them over. I know you say you invited them a few times and they said no, but I wouldn’t have stopped asking - or at least made clear that it is an open invitation and we’d love them to come one year. They may simply think it is unimportant to your DH if they haven’t been invited for many years.

We have found over the last 20 years the best thing to do is just not have any traditions or expectations for Christmas. So every year do something different. Sometimes if it works all be together, other times go away, be at different houses different days with different people. If it didn't work with people or venue never feel obliged to do it again or invite people who make it miserable, whoever they are. If you want to see them then invite them or have a conversation with them and say you want to see them over Christmas.

So why can't you have the nice family get together (which I assume is what DH misses; not that it must be on a particular day) at a different time of year?

We generally go abroad at Christmas. I do go for to my parents for a few days in December and I have an early Christmas with just them and my children(DH is always working at that time of year). This works really well. To be honest most of my friends (40s) find Christmas itself a massive stress because they are balancing the needs of their elderly parents, children and partners whilst travelling around the country, cooking and/or staying in different places and navigating difficult family relationships.