To not want to go to the pub on Boxing Day every year?

Love this for your mum!! Good on her. Wish more women would stop falling over themselves to cater non stop to men who won’t lift a reciprocal finger, to help, ever. But then that has a lot to do with social conditioning, and expected shitty gender roles, and my younger self was definitely guilty of that.

Hate this, and would prioritise my self and my children, over waiting hand and foot on all the men of the family, who have done absolutely jack shit, over the Christmas period. Had this with my partner’s family. The mother shopping, cooking and cleaning nonstop, entertaining everyday, over the the Christmas period, catering to everyone, whilst all the men sat around getting shit faced not lifting a finger, except for the dad to stand proudly by the turkey, to carving it . Of course, in the early years, I would help my mum in law, because no one else would. But then that it meant that I spent all these Christmas’s, when visiting, also catering to a bunch of pissed and entitled men. One Christmas I said sod it, and sat down with the men, and told my partner and his brothers to go and help their own mother for once as I was done for the day. Of course, when ever we visit, for what ever occasion, I always help out , but then make a point of asking everyone else in the room to also help out.

Did DH go or stay with you?

For me it completely depends on other factors. e.g. have you spent the whole of Christmas Day with them already, versus is this the only day over Christmas you'll see them. If it's the latter I'd probably suck it up (and to be honest it doesn't sound that bad to me). And I'm not a 1950s housewife type.

But then my DS would love it if his cousins were there...he has multiple other days over the holidays to play with his toys.

The only thing that would really bother me is that the women do both prepping and clearing up and I think this should be one or the other. The excessive drinking is also not great but not as bad if its an exception rather than regularly.

Im honestly not directing this at you, OP....more a general musing. But speaking from (limited) experience, I think if you get together with someone who has a family culture like this, you may as well accept some of it rather than expecting them to change. 'Putting your foot down' isn't likely to go down well...and why would they suddenly change to meet your viewpoint because you feel you have the moral highground. Especially if they are all happy with it. It's a bit naive to think it will suddenly change...best not to get involved in the first place.

My XDH used to go to the pub with his mates on xmas eve and saw no reason to change the tradition when we had children. He was adamant, and I was a killjoy.
He would come home about 9pm, completely legless, fall asleep on the sofa and snore loudly all night. No christmas eve excitement with the children putting them to bed, putting out their pillowcases, tracking santa on NORAD. I did all of that.
He came home one year, our 8 year old came down for a drink of water just as he was drinking santa's whisky on the mantlepiece. You should have seen my child's face as he put 2 and 2 together.. my ex then snarled "oh for f*cks sake. He not real" and went into the kitchen. My now fully grown child still remebers the hurt.
After that we started a tradition of early dinner at pizza express on christmas eve, and we would go and drag him out at 4.30.

There is a reason why he's and ex..

I would never go, I hate being dragged out by some stupid tradition

i wouldn’t like it and I love a pub! My kids would be bored and argue because they’d just want to play with their toys. They’re 13 and 10 now. Last year we went out for Christmas lunch and it was great. We felt we could do that as it was only a short walk away and a couple of hours. Otherwise we’ve had a sort of unwritten rule that other than a Boxing Day walk we stick around at home while they’re young

Even DM got sick of this kind of crap by the early 1990s- it was every bank holiday dominated by sport/ pub/ betting shops, so she decided that if the male half of the family could be out having fun, the female half could too and we started doing things like going to the cinema. She didn't actually have an obligation to spend hours making roasts.

Big improvement.

I know a few families like this and it tends to go hand in hand with

• women who don't & have never really worked, so are completely financially dependent on the men, who use this as means of control
• bigger families and ones where children have been had a bit younger eg in 20s, so the older generation of men are still relatively young & there's a big crowd willing to go to the pub & drink loads. (It doesn't work so well if grandad/uncles are pushing 80 and falling asleep by 4pm)
• men who are useless across the board, do little to prep for christmas or care for children

No fucking way would i agree to that crap

I could live with a few drinks in the pub but the only way the "women going back to make the buffet" washes is if the men do the whole christmas lunch, so its like a fair split

My ex, during divorce proceedings, complained that I didn’t want to join in with his family’s tradition of the men all going to the pub on Christmas morning and the women staying at home to cook the dinner.
Much of his head is still firmly in 1950.
Hope you enjoyed your day OP!

I love that you stood up for yourself. Were you ever invited back and what happen3d then? It's unfathomable that people think it's okay to act like this.

I really like the idea of getting out to the pub with the family but the bit where the men get thoroughly pissed and the women do all the food at home is grim.

The men get as pissed as possible and all the women go back to one of the houses at about 3pm and prep a buffet while the men stay in the pub a while longer.

HOW do so many women put up with and go along with this outrageously sexist shite.

Nothing wrong with a pub on Boxing Day or any other day but like hell would I trot off with the other women to prepare food for the men. And what's going on with the gender-segregated activities in the first place.

I was taken to pubs a lot as a kid, with my Dad. Hours spent amongst drunken idiots (mostly men) when I was a young girl. I absolutely hated it.

I would never agree to this shit and I'm glad you refused to go. Fuck them.

"The men get as pissed as possible and all the women go back to one of the houses at about 3pm and prep a buffet while the men stay in the pub a while longer."
Fuck that for a game of soldiers! (And that would probably be the exact phrase I'd say to the in-laws.)

"... but in laws are rather upset as us spoiling their family tradition."
No, what they're upset by is that you have drawn attention to how ridiculous their 'tradition' is. As long as nobody says 'no', they can kid themselves that behaving as they do is all fine and dandy. By you sayin 'no' they have to face that actually, it really isn't. That makes them really uncomfortable.

You've done the right thing. And you're creating your own traditions, traditions that suit you and your family. Again, the right thing.

It sounds awful, good on you for breaking the pattern. Fortunately it sounds like your husband was just in the habit of doing it instead of attached to the tradition.

Horrible tradition. Time to end it

@Fluffyandfestive

My in laws are very sexist and old fashioned and since we've had children there have been a lot of things where I'm seeing that I need to stand my ground and not be a pushover just to keep them happy.

I feel desperately sorry for your MIL. Imagine being so brainwashed by that shit that you convince not only yourself but your DIL that it’s normal.

Good for you for standing your ground.