Had a cry over Christmas cause I feel like I only give and get not much back

Well then let it not get done and stop making it your problem.

If you lie on the floor don’t be surprised when people step on you.

I promise you, you can just not do this stuff. The world won't end, people's Christmas won't be ruined.

You are disappointed because you put in far too much effort expecting a round of applause for doing it.

Dial down the effort and expectations. Your idea of the perfect Xmas probably doesn't match what the rest of your family thinks.

They’re Mediterranean in 2025 with access to the internet not quadriplegic. They would have managed to make something.

So don’t complain about it?
Just do things differently next year so you don’t feel like you’ve done everything.

Then again, if you like to be the ones who does it all (and it sounds like it from your posts) then own it and go for it!

Kindly, is your divorce recent (within the past year)? Could this possibly really be triggered by how you feel about that? Christmas was ‘different’ this year, and things such as seeing your sisters DH run about looking after her and no longer having a partner to look after/take some load from you when you feel unwell made all the horrid ‘unloved/lonely’ feelings surface?

You’re doing them a disservice here. They are adults with no SN? They are capable then of cooking a roast, or at the very least having a role in the process and washing their hands.

If you place yourself as the only one who can do xyz then most people will happily sit back and let you do it without having a clue of the effort it takes. No one is unreasonable here. Next year you need to be clear that it’s not all on you. If the house needs a big clean then delegate so everyone does their fair share. Cooking a full on Christmas meal? Share out the preparations and be very clear that you’re not doing it all.

In the nicest possible way, you have put yourself in this position. If you don’t like it you can take yourself out of it.

It’s rubbish when you think you’ll be having fun doing things together, then you end up doing it on your own, especially when there are a few folk around.

How are you now? Cold better? I’ve just started with one 🙄.

This is 100% on you. No one asked you to.

Painting walls is beyond ludicrous

OP, your constant pushbacks to very reasonable solutions and questions i.e "my family are mediterranean" / "if i dont do it it doesnt get done" / "i wanted visitors to be comfortable" etc are really frustrating.

Youve placed yoursekf in this role, and youve placed yourself in this role because you like being "the one", because then you can also be the martyr.

Your family arent mindreaders, and until you get out of the addiction to being the one upon whom all depends and to being the martyr, this will continue.

But please dont pretend you havent done it to yourself

Sometimes you need to say what you want / need, people aren't mind readers. Did you really "scrub" the entire house or is that hyperbole? It does all sound very martyrish!

Why on earth didn't you just say that you felt too unwell to cope with the cooking alone? Nobody asked you to get up at 4am to make cinnamon rolls, nor would expect you to. It's lovely that you did, but that is martyrish. You could have watched TV or read a book instead.
Your sister SAID she was feeling unwell and took herself off and asked for help- you didn't. Sometimes you need to be straightforward and not wait for people to work things out. I'm also someone who will just cope and get on with it which can lead to me doing everything and that's on me because I don't ask for help enough.
They obviously love you and care for you. Take it as a lesson learned for next year and do things differently for your own sake.

I am truly sympathetic but I think you are making a mistake here. You are seeing the cooking as something you did for them and then, in your mind, they didn’t turn around and do for you. But—and I have done all the cooking in my family since age 11, now 65–they think it was a communal effort done out of love, companionably. You felt sick but in their mind you wanted to soldier on because you had more fun together than lying down being fussed over. Some people would feel that way. Your sister didn’t and her husband enjoyed fussing over her but that has nothing to do with you. Thats a pleasure of their marriage.

I think you feel unmothered as well as unloved pust divorce. My adult dds are home and I would make a huge fuss over them if they were sick. It must sting that your mother, arthritis notwithstanding, didn’t comandeer someone to look after you.

But as you are living at home everyone may have also seen you more as a host than a guest and hosts do just have to soldier on. It is also very common for visiting daughters/daughters i law to collapse over family vacations as its one of the few times they get cared for and it prevents too many demands from being made on them. Which may be why your sister took time for her cold.

So stop doing all this stuff, OP! Nobody will care if you "scrub the whole house", let's face it.
You are rather making yourself into a doormat. Why not change things up next year..... take yourself off to a nice, sunny beach with a stack of good books, and appreciate how lucky you are to have the freedom to do so!

Getting divorced can be shite - even when the marriage wasn’t great or you know you are better off now, times like Christmas can make single life feel really isolating, even when you are surrounded by people who love you.

But no one needed to get up a 4 on Christmas monring to make cinnamon rolls. People would have enjoyed Christmas just as much with a slice of toast and coffee. You seem to be caught up in creating an idea of theperfect Christmas by following a check list but there is no perfect Christmas and doing everything certainly ins’t the route to a good Christmas.