I love Christmas but I hate the pressure of having to spend it with family that are unpleasant.
My mum is not a very nice person, she has no interest in my children and is really unpleasant and jealous of them monopolising my attention. She makes nasty loaded remarks continually and constantly moans. No fun at all.
To escape her this year I suggested to my husband that we visit his sister in Cornwall. Sounds great yeah? In theory it should be it’s just that my sister in law is extremely unwelcoming to me, always has been (she was very close to my husbands first wife who died from cancer and is continually bringing her up in conversation). She has ‘agreed’ that we can come, but said in the phone that she “wont stand on ceremony”. This makes me feel pretty unwelcome actually. My husband says she just means muck in and treat her place as home, which is all well and good it’s just that when she visits us I make her welcome, cook meals for us all as a family etc ... I don’t feel comfortable cooking in someone else’s kitchen and actually find it stressful because I don’t know where everything is, especially if they are around watching me!! I don’t understand shy for just one day she can’t make us welcome and cook a meal.
But then she might, or it might be like every other time I’ve visited her and the house is cold, unwelcoming and there is no food in let alone a cooked meal.
Shall I go to Cornwall and hope for the best? Just accept that I will be doing the cooking there? The kids are excited about going.
Staying at home will inevitably mean having to put up with my sour mother.
I really don’t know which is worse. Help!!