To be thinking something so awful?

Why have you nie read ops updates, it's wuite clear the woman is manipulative and guilt trips the daughters.

It’s really just another day. Celebrate Christmas on the last Sunday before Xmas day? Start a new tradition. Not on Boxing Day when everyone is tired and cranky.
or go out to a restaurant or take your parents away for a few days?
literally ignore the actual date. It’s just a date. I wouldn’t make a big deal because it won’t change and your sisters are in a difficult position.

Two things can be true at the same time.

1. Your dad’s ex wife is completely unreasonable (and frankly her daughters need to stand up to her and call her bluff) and 2.Your dad is also being very unreasonable by refusing to make the most of what he’s got and making you miserable too.

I’d go somewhere else for a lovely lunch with my Mum and let my Dad get on with it with his ready meal til Boxing Day, if he was selfish enough to have made us feel second best for 40 years.
Ex wife sounds unhinged but honestly, that’s no excuse.

If you cooked a roast it would get binned? So you eat a ready made roast instead? Don’t be ridiculous 🙄

Your dad sounds as emotionally manipulative as his first wife.

You haven't met my mother.

No you aren’t. All those who have said YABU must never have had an impure thought.

Im a mental health practitioner. Thoughts don’t make you “bad”. Its how you behave that matters.

Iv had a boss i used to imagine pushing off a cliff. Im not a bad person. Just human.

Why can’t your sisters decide for themselves that it’s dad’s turn as mum has had enough Christmas days?

That said, my dad had an affair and chose to broke up the family so I never feel bad that we don’t see him on Christmas Day - he chose to leave and if he hadn’t done that then he’d still get to see his family on special days.

Honestly, I can’t believe you can’t see your Dad’s selfishness! Regardless of the rights and wrongs of Ex behaviour, he couldn’t plaster on a smile for his daughter on Christmas???

He makes it all about himself, what kind of awful self esteem do you have to tolerate being told you’re not enough for him to enjoy the day. He would bin a proper lunch?? Of course it would be lovely if you were all together, but you make the best of it.

When you were a child, was he like this too? This is so terribly sad.

This. Seriously. This is how his family life has unfolded. It isn't fair but life often isn't. He has a lovely celebration with all his children on the 26th. He needs to cop himself on.

If your dad didn't mope about this you could be writing "my dad's older children by his first wife always go to her for xmas day but we have a brilliant celebration all together on boxing day and it really extends christmas for us"

Do yours Christmas eve day?

It's not your father's ex wife who is ruining christmas, it's your father himself. Honestly he sounds like a completely petulant wet blanket who is ruining it for those who do want to spend it with him. You are directing your anger at the wrong person because you don't want to face the fact that your father is willingly making christmas miserable for you.

You have to start thinking differently in that Christmas day is just that, a day. In the grand scheme of things it is not like you are all still children and he doesn't get to see your sisters at all. You get to re-do YOUR family day Boxing day all together so it doesn't matter whether it is the 25th or the 26th of Dec or even if its the 1st of whenever. You are all still together being able to enjoy it!!

what were your Christmasses like as a kid? also awful?

Your dad is, frankly, a knob.

I think the whole lot of them are unreasonable.

Your sisters, for not standing up to their narcissistic mother, though that's easier said than done - obviously.

And your dad for making sure Christmas day will be horrible because, despite this being the norm for 40 YEARS(!!) he can't just take one for the team. A ready-made roast? Really?!

so you get a shitty christmas day because even after all this time your dad can't accept that Christmas is not happening how he wants it?

That's daft, to be honest.

I feel for him, but your sisters are adults and they either need to call their mum's bluff, or you all need to accept the situation.

It isn't about the date on the calendar, it is about the family celebration. For reasons, over the years, ours has been anywhere between 25th and 30th.

I grew up with divorced parents. Every year I had xmas day with my mum and her family, full roast dinner. Boxing day was dad and his family, full roast dinner. Me and brother loved having 2 Christmasses and my dad just got on with it. Because he was a grown up

So is your dad completely unable to have a nice xmas day with you and his wife? He just..sulks?

Literally everyone is acting like children here.

Ex wife is melodramatic and using dire threats to control.

Elder daughters are allowing themselves to be manipulated and won’t stand up to their mother, or refrain from drinking so they’re not hungover.

Dad is sulking instead of facing reality and making a nice day of it.

Youngest daughter is refusing to see that everyone is contributing to this fuxked dynamic of “helpless” misery including her.

Not many people are saying it's fair OP. It isn't fair for your Dad but it is how it is, for this Christmas and the foreseeable future, unless your sisters do something about it. Don't they ever want to go to their partners family?

What can be changed is your Dad spoiling you and your Mum's Christmas, that's just downright selfish. What gave him the right to ruin 40 of your Christmases? They are both just as selfish in their own way.

If you want to help him at all then you must encourage him to snap out of this destructive behaviour. For the sake of his health. And for your poor Mum, how she has stood this for forty years I don't know. I love Christmas, I would have left long ago.

And ps - I know a family that is WAY more complicated than yours in terms of masses of second marriages, half siblings, widowed people, young kids etc. No-one gets precious about who is with who on what day over the holiday season - it’s organised so that everyone who wants to spend time with each other gets to do that, which is much more important than the actual date on the calendar!

At this point, I would just try and let Christmas Day with your sisters go. Sounds like there is a lot of emotional baggage attached to it for everyone and even if you finally get together on 25th is not necessarily going to be the perfect day you all hoped for. Doing a runner up version of Christmas Day on Boxing Day also sounds rubbish and slightly depressing. Can you not change the timings and see everyone a bit later on and make your own traditions. No one wants two consecutive Xmas days how ever much they love Christmas. Maybe look elsewhere in the calendar for an annual family get together x

So make it one?
Its a difficult situation, but I suspect one when it’s a little bit of ‘what you make it’
It doesn’t have to be horrendous
Make a proper roast, invent some new traditions and make things as good as they can be. If it can’t be changed, the only options left are to think it’s going to be ‘horrendous’ or change mindset and do things to make it feel more positive

If boxing day is always a bust, pick any other day. Xmas eve, the weekend before/after, whatever.
I understand it doesn't feel fair (it isn't) but to just mope about it for 40 years instead of finding an alternative solution that minimises the stress for his daughters is pathetic. You've responded to a few posts as if you think they are condoning the ex wifes behaviour - but it is irrelevant. She sounds absolutely appalling but the reality is you can't change how she behaves. Your dad can change how he behaves and make much better of the situation instead of just being bitter about it though.

Sounds like your dad is just as manipulative but in a passive aggressive “poor me” way.

Loads and loads of people don’t get to spend Christmas day with all their kids. For many reasons. Geography, lack of space, kids are married and going to their in laws, etc. It’s really not some massively unusual hardship not to see all your kids on Christmas day and tbh it’s to be expected if your kids have two different mothers.

As a pp said, he has your mum and you on Christmas day, she does not have a spouse or other kids. You say she has “loads of people” she could spend Christmas with - well why doesn’t the same apply to your dad? Why is he allowed to be heartbroken at not seeing his two other kids, but she should be fine to spend it with friends only?

And all this stuff about only getting the sisters hungover and reluctant on Boxing Day. That’s not their mum’s fault, that’s the sisters if they can’t drum up enthusiasm for a second Christmas (maybe stop doing a full roast on Boxing Day, nobody wants that!!)

Sorry but you and he both sound ridiculous.