Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To leave family alone for Christmas and new year

57 replies

Orquid9 · 16/12/2025 09:05

Please help me bring some sense to me. SAD has hit me very hard this year and I am about to buy a ticket costing more than 2k to go to my home country in the tropics: leaving DH and DD18 and DD14 alone for Christmas and new year. DD2 will be 15 on Christmas day.

Every day I wake up wanting to scape, I feel very low atm. We don’t have family in the UK as DH is from Australia

OP posts:
FestiveBauble · 16/12/2025 09:19

I do think that would be unreasonable.

Are you doing anything else to combat the SAD? There’s a variety of options pre booking a ticket to the tropics.

I think with 10 days to go, suddenly booking a ticket to miss both Christmas and your youngest DDs birthday would perhaps have more repercussions than if you’d booked 6 months ago with everyone’s knowledge. In your youngest DDs shoes that would probably really devastate me.

peonysinthesun · 16/12/2025 09:18

The 15 year old will remember it forever, it’s bad enough her birthday is on Christmas but her mother leaving to go on a holiday by herself? Strange. If you go don’t expect to have the same relationship with them again.

HeddaGarbled · 16/12/2025 09:15

They will be fine

I don’t think they will, especially the 15 year old on her birthday. That’s the sort of story she’ll be telling her counsellor in adulthood.

IamSmarticus · 16/12/2025 09:12

YABU. Can't you go after Christmas? Especially as it is your DD's birthday as well.

EmeraldShamrock000 · 16/12/2025 09:12

They will be fine. The break will be good for you, they’re not babies.
My parents went away for Christmas occasionally when we were teenagers. It didn’t do us any harm, go away, get yourself feeling refreshed for the new year ahead.

TheatricalLife · 16/12/2025 09:09

Could they not go with you? Or do you not want them to?

DappledThings · 16/12/2025 09:08

Do you want to escape from just the weather here or your family? I take it tickets for all of you are unaffordable hence you are considering going alone.

Of course it's unreasonable to just do this without discussing it with your family but as a one-off if they are ok about it I don't think it's automatically a bad idea.

What will happen next year though and the next year? The SAD won't go away and this won't be an annual solution.

Swipe left for the next trending thread