Feeling guilty over Christmas plans

’I’m just extra aware of giving both sets of grandparents an equal chance to develop a relationship’

Have you said this specifically to your mum?

So if you and your siblings get organised your mum would not be "alone", just not you and your DH joining them on some years. She's being selfish.

I think you wanted us to say “oh absolutely prioritise your mum every year”. She has well and truly got her claws in to you @Christmasguilt

Right. So if this is what you want for your son, for him to see his dad’s parents too, how foes your mum’s guilt come into it? Why aren’t you shutting her down with a “we want Jack to spend Christmas with his paternal grandparents as much as with his maternal” the second she starts on the guilt trip.

She knows exactly what she’s doing. She did it to your dad’s parents. She wants you to do what she did: make sure she has it all, always. Can you see that making you feel guilty is her way of getting this?

This!

Alternating is the only fair way to handle Christmas.

Both you and your mum are being overly dramatic about this.

Exactly
equal time
and yet your mother is behaving abysmally
can you really not see that @Christmasguilt )

My sister always said she'd never do the alternating Christmas lunch thing when she had a child. She did (because she doesn't like cooking). Her partner, an only child, feels they have to go to his widowed mother every Christmas lunch and the 3 of them come to our parents for Christmas tea. t

Boxing Day my sister and child comes to our parents for turkey and chips whilst her partner stays with his mum.

Me, I please myself as I don't have children and this Christmas I'm single. Bliss.

Christmas is for families, but it's mostly for the kids. I don't see the point (took me 8 years though) in letting your kids experience the magic of Christmas, santas been, it's finally the day, no you can't play with that gift now though we have to get ready to go to nans house
After nans we have to go to grandads
After grandads we need to go see Auntie

Nahhh, everyone can wait until the next day IMO. Take Christmas for you, it's more than a 'day' but the DAY is about the kids.

I say people can come to me if they want, but my kids are sitting at home with sweets, and gifts, and love, and the experience.

When I was young I spent half of christmas day in the pub because my mums parents wanted to go to the pub, we dressed up and we had fun, but we never had a christmas dinner and boxing day we'd all end up at another pub with dads parents, had a token christmas dinner (nan was a great cook though) have dinner and taxi 30 minutes back home. Then we'd get to finally play with our gifts and explore our new things.

I personally do it the opposite, but each to their own - christmas is magical in different ways

What we did, before parents started to become too frail, was rotate like this:

My parents to us
His parents to us
Us to my parents
Us to DH's parents

And in the intervening years our brothers would host or visit. It worked well.

OP you need to stop being such a people pleaser and start thinking about what you and your husband want. You want to give your mum her ideal Christmas, you also want to give your brother his ideal Christmas…have you asked your husband what his ideal Christmas is? How about yourself? You need to put yourself and your family unit first and create your own traditions or you will be forever trying to please everyone else and will carry that guilt and anguish for many years to come.

Hmm, it makes you wonder! If the baby was a girl, I wonder if the thought process would be different!

@Christmasguilt sorry if I'm misinterpreting this, but it really sounds like you were happy for your partner's parents to be "the other family" but (in your own words) now you've had a son, you are panicking about him one day having his own family and you being "the other grandparents"... People are commenting that your mother is being melodramatic or even manipulative, but to be honest it seems like you're two peas in a pod, at least when it comes to Christmas dinner logistics!

Lovely idea

Who had the chaotic Christmases with kids running around that you were jealous of?

No doubt a Pandora’s box of this mother manipulating @Christmasguilt and slyly getting her way

Then your brother should feel guilty for imposing this on you all.

How do you know your paternal grandparents happily did their own thing every year? Chances are they wanted to see you but your mum made the rule to go to her parents. Maybe they just stepped back and kept the peace. Can you not see how that might have played out?

My DCs are grown up. We probably have Christmas Day all together every 4 or 5 years. They have families, and in-laws, and some of them work on Christmas Day depending on rotas.

I would never dream of guilting them, and I’d never be such an egotist as to expect them every year!

What we do instead is arrange an alternate “Christmas Day”, usually around the 28th-30th, when they do all come round and we celebrate it together. For them, it’ll be their 2nd Christmas Day. For DH and I it will be our only Christmas Day and we’ll do presents and everything on that day. I love it, and it means we can spend the 25th in our pyjamas eating chocolate and cheese and watching telly!

The OP said that as a child, they saw her mum’s parents every Christmas and never saw their dad’s parents.

Shocker!

It's quite normal to alternate and they have each other. They might (learn to) like it, they can go away or do something more exciting. And you have a sibling.

It's a lot more difficult when you have a lone parent and there are no siblings.

You can't split yourself in 2 and your parents surely know that DPs parents also want some chances to see their GC at Xmas.

Alternate years is fine and what most families have to do.

This feels like such an overreaction - I'm worndering if there's a back story or history here. I understand feeling torn at Christmas, but the family that you have created is your priority. It sounds like you and your brother feel unusually responsible for your parents happiness. Your parents will have each other, its not like its a single parent left alone on Christmas day.

Nope, sod all that. Christmas Day is our time, nobody comes round and we don’t go anywhere. DH has sadly lost both his parents but even before that we did the same.

I think I'd do Christmas in a 3 year cycle. Year one all of your family and give your DHs parents the option of joining you or having a family Christmas without you but all of his siblings, year 2 all of your DPs family and give your parents the option of joining you or your brother, year 3 I'd be inviting both sets of parents but no-one else!