It’s a Christmas one sorry! AIBU not inviting my in-laws to spend it with my family?

You’re coming across as a very spikey person. At first I thought you were overthinking the situation but the more I read it just feels like this isn’t about your mum or his and it’s actually about what you want.

But they're your family. How can your parents think someone you are now related to is a near stranger?

I'm an only child and my DH has one brother. I'm very glad that from early on his family became mine and vice versa. So our respective parents got to know each other too. They weren't near strangers even though they lived hundreds of miles apart. They shared grandchildren for a start.

Near strangers? Ouch!

I’m with you OP. Alternate years it’s been so why change now?
Theyre not on their own, they have each other to spend the day with.

I think if you had your husband on board you could spin it with your mother in law and sister in law that your mum's hosting and it's getting to be a bit too much for her but still makes sense to have it at her house. So if they're really stuck of course they're welcome but otherwise adding extra people this year would be best avoided.

I wonder why your husband thinks they'd want to come. I'd agree with your assessment that they probably wouldn't want to be with 12 people they mostly don't know.

Dear my…
just no. If you split the years then it is good enough…if you say yes…she will end up every year at yours and your mum will have to cater for your in laws…

Very cheecky of him to not take your no for an answer!

To be honest OP based on all you’ve said, I doubt your mil will be interested/ keen anyway!! I’d be tempted to invite her to keep the peace , she’ll say no and you’ll still be the good guy

For me, if my spouse wants to see his mum at Christmas - he’s going to see his mum at Christmas

Same. Although my dh's Mum and Dad live 25mins away, not 6hours, so it is a completely different thing

The ‘case closed’ approach of ‘No, you are only every other year even if you want to try a different way’ is not how a loving long lasting marriage operates. Life isn’t static, there is room to change arrangements

Absolutely. We've been married over 30 years and have never had a rotation of alternate years going to each others' parents. We've done all sorts of different things over the decades including visiting, including hosting, including not being with either set of parents. We've also done '2 Christmases' some years, spending the day with one side of the family on Christmas day and the other on perhaps 27th or 28th. We now have adult dc as well, and have the balance of them also balancing with their in-laws. Plus throw in two people whose job involves them working shifts over Christmas.
Believe me, we are super flexible and super fair with our arrangements which have evolved over the decades and no doubt will continue to evolve as the years move on.

What we've never done is try and impose either of our sets of parents on people who don't have a relationship with them.
Nor have we accused the other one of being selfish, or disliking our families because it is one of the years we are spending it with the other half's family.

I have a small family and my husband has a big one. We alternate it. The years I’m with my husband‘s big busy family, my mum and dad and Uncle just have a meal themselves. My dad always says it’s the ‘quiet“ year where they can hear themselves think. It’s just one day, one meal and then you sit and watch a film and fall asleep. It doesn’t mean anything if you are surrounded with family, or having a quiet meal on your own. I went psychologist who said the pressure of Christmas is so intense it really does damage people. My parents have never pressured me even though we have a small family. I’m eternally grateful for them being understanding and kind. Otherwise we would be driving up and down the country exhausted every year.

But this isnt the case - if the DH wants to invite his DM and DS to HIS home then fine but to expect his wife's DM and extended family to host them is ridiculous - and most likley misogynistic.

@OtterlyMad I’m sorry if I’ve missed it, but have you said how old MIL is? A lot of posters are trotting out the old “She might not be here for that many more years - THEN you’ll regret it” line. But given you’re talking about becoming parents in the next few years, I’m guessing she’s not actually that old? Sixties maybe? I think some posters are desperate to cast her in the role of frail abandoned old dear, when actually she could be around for another 25 years for all they know.

And if MIL isn’t that old, I’m guessing SIL isn’t exactly Mavis Riley either. Surely she has some life of her own outside of her mother and brother, and will want to spend some of the Christmas period doing her own thing rather than travelling six hours to be a spare part at her brother’s wife’s mother’s house with people she barely knows?

He spends Christmas with them every other year.

Leaving people on their own is harsh- I grew up with my uncles brother spending Christmas with us as their parents were dead and he was single BUT these aren’t people on their own, the mum and sister are together!

Pre DC, we alternated over 8 years. DH’s side always had in laws (not a single person who would otherwise be alone) along and it did change the whole dynamic- especially with language barriers and very different approaches to stuff (tv being the devil whereas Christmas strictly and a box of chocolate is a highlight for me). It just didn’t really work.

OP it sounds like you intend to host in the near future anyway?

Don't do it!! Have Christmas with your family, and don't feel guilty about it. If your husband wants to throw a paddy over it, let him go back to him spending Christmas with them. How are they supposed to get to your Mums and back?? If you do it once, it will become the norm and there will be no going back.

TBF your Christmas sounds like my idea of hell. Too noisy, probably too hot, too uncomfortable and too over crowded.

Why doesn’t he spend it with his DM and sis this year and you have your full on family Christmas.

I prefer Christmas somewhere in between the two but probably erring on the quieter side like his folks but each to their own. My DS has a girlfriend and will spend this year with us but imagine he may choose to spend to spend Christmas with her family going forward as they are bigger and a closer family and I will be on my own with DD if she is around.

I'm not trying to tear your opinion down. You were responding to OP as if she was another poster rather than the OP, which I was pointing out to you. Calm down.

We used to alternate until one year we decided to amalgamate, never again

One of my daughters is getting married this year. His parents live in another province (Canadian). I couldn’t pick them out of a line up for love or money. He’s also an only child.

If she called and asked me to host two strangers, I’d be very unhappy. I gladly flex visits around different schedules, but having two strangers land in on a holiday isn’t my thing. Especially since even SIL has said how extremely different we are to how he grew up. We’re loud, chaotic, stay in pjs at will, set up buffet style, watch movies (including Die Hard). His parents are formal table, dressed up, quiet. And his mom hates cats and is afraid of dogs. We have two cats and a dog.

They’d not enjoy themselves and I’m not changing the holidays for eight people, locking up three pets, to accommodate the expectations of two, in my home, on my dime and with my work.

Would you DH like it if you invited your family to his mums for Christmas? If not, why is it ok for him to do it, and you did spend last Christmas with his family.

I agree with all @PestoHoliday. Some of the responses on this thread are ridiculous. People are trying to portray OP’s MIL as something between an aged version of a Dickensian street urchin freezing in the snow, pressing her nose up against the OP’s window and watching them feast on the biggest turkey in the shop, and a modern day bird woman from Mary Poppins.

All that’s happening here is that OP’s MIL is spending Christmas with her own daughter. One of her children instead of both; as millions of parents do worldwide every year, precisely because it’s so common for people to do every other year with each set of parents. Why are so many posters acting like OP’s MIL will be frantically trying to keep the Meals on Wheels lady talking in a desperate attempt to have some company, when in fact she has her own child there all day?

If OP was insisting on Christmas with just her husband at the exclusion of MIL and SIL, then yes, I’d think she was being mean. If MIL and SIL were the only members of a close family being excluded, then yes, that would be mean. But neither of these things are the case. Do OP’s MIL and SIL even want to join this en masse gathering of relations by marriage? Some of whom they probably barely know? Posters keep talking about them being excluded from the big jolly family Christmas, but surely what makes it a big jolly family Christmas is the close connections; everyone coming together when they maybe don’t get to see each other that often? It could be lovely, but I can’t imagine wanting to join someone else’s family’s version.

No, how is usually was was OP and DH spending Christmas apart, seeing their respective families, @WorcsEdu . She says that in her first post.

Now they're spending Christmas together and alternating, but having had "his turn" last year, her DH wants to renege on the agreement and drag his mother and sister along to OP's "turn" at a family Chat.

That's unreasonable and selfish. It's all about him.

But does it have to stay that way because that’s how it has always been? You don’t stay the exact same person from the day you marry until the day you die. If he wants to transition from every other year, to now doing joint Christmas, surely it’s ok to consider how he wants to live going forward? Saying it’s ‘the way it’s always been or you can go off without me’ sounds very unhealthy. Listening to her spouse so they can grow/change in the same direction (rather than apart) seems better. It all just has such a ‘his wants’ versus ‘hers’ and ‘his family’ or ‘her family’ dynamic. They are all one family whether they like it or not.