Getting out of invites

[bissom]

How do you do it?

Just say you've decided to have a more intimate Christmas at home this year and you hope to see them all another time soon.
You don't have to accept an invite just because you traditionally have before. If they get upset, that's their problem. How you decide to spend your Xmas is up to you, you don't have to explain yourself 😊

This is risky. Last week I told somebody that I didn't particularly want to see that I would be away on the mainland for a few days. I live in a smallish village on a smallish island and there was a very good chance that he would bump into me again when I was away.

So I had to become a recluse for two days. It developed into a Father Ted like farce where each silly lie begets another lie and I found myself checking the airport timetables for my phantom return flight, and slipping out to the shop at last knockings for supplies wearing what would pass for been on the mainland clothes.

I think I've pulled it off but the hills have eyes around here.

Just say no. Don't want to come. Keep it simple.

We are planning Xmas at home but will see you X date

I think unless there’s a big backstory, most people don’t mind having fewer people over at Christmas, and will offer invites out of politeness / courtesy / tradition. If there are children & grandchildren it tends to be all about that, and more grown-ups don’t really add much as you don’t get the chance for a proper conversation anyway.

‘We’re having a quiet Christmas at home this year but let’s plan to catch up in the new year’ should be fine.

We'll be travelling to see [insert far away relative] but hope you all have a lovely time. Catch up in the NY?

The invite is from far away relatives, I only really see them at Christmas

Thanks for inviting us that's really kind, but we have decided to go away this year.

I wouldn't tell any sort of untruth unless you no longer want to maintain a relationship at all (not clear from your posts). Fibs can get found out too easily, social media posts, accidentally letting slip to a third party, them asking questions about where you are going if you say you're going away etc.

It's my sister and I do want to maintain a relationship I just don'r really want to spend Christmas with them

We're spending it with my sister and her family, we're all together every Christmas since aslong as I can remember along with the rest of the family and sometimes added extras from her husbands family or anyone we want there/here too. If anyone decided they're not up for it we wouldn't be upset and would do Christmas regardless. It happened when some of us had covid it was different but still nice.
Could you go for breakfast instead, exchange gifts Christmas eve or go on a Christmas outing with her and the kids.

We live 3 hours away so rarely see each other in the flesh

Three hours really isn’t that far. I suppose it depends on how you define rarely, but MIL lives longer than that from us and we see each other several time a year. I also don’t know how this is relevant to the OP where you want to know how to decline their invitation without saying you don’t want to go. Either your time with your sister is so limited and valuable that you’re willing to suck up a Christmas that isn’t what you want, or you decline the invitation to have a quiet Christmas at home but that means seeing less of your sister. Neither are wrong answers, and there’s always the option to spend Christmas at home but make more of an effort to visit through the rest of the year. It doesn’t have to be Christmas or nothing.

What do you not organise a get together in the other 11 months of the year? A weekend in summer rather than at Christmas.

Say you'd love to then TRAGEDY you have COVID on Christmas eve

Just say thanks but you've now decided to stop travelling at Christmas as it's always cold/busy/stressful/expensive. Then that gets you out of future years as well.

You can't do that, they will have catered for you and made plans around you being there, it isn't fair. Just be honest, we have family members who choose to spend Christmas alone and that's fine, but telling lies would be quite hard to forgive.

So let them incur any inconveniences and expenses of hosting OP with no intention of showing up?

so your sister is hosting Christmas for her adult children and grand children?

I should think she invites you to be nice but will not be upset in the slightest if you say no.

say you enjoy a quiet Christmas but please could you get a date in the diary for the 2/4 of you to get together. Maybe suggest a pre-Christmas meal half way between the two of you? Or your and DH go to visit them and have a meal at the beginning of December?

just be honest that a busy Christmas is too much for you. As long as you immediately follow that with a plan to get together she will understand that it’s not that you don’t want to see her

Agree that this would be the worst thing to do. Inconsiderate and cowardly.

Boohoohoo

Don't pressure people to go to ridiculous things if you don't want a lie

And hopefully they won't do it again

Since when was christmas a ‘ridiculous thing’?

Since it started being a mad festival of obligation towards insensitive social bludgeoners

What pressure? As far as the OP has said the sister has just invited her for Christmas. The only pressure is the self imposed from the OP who doesn’t want to say to her sister that she prefers a quiet Christmas at home rather than a large busy Christmas at her sister’s house.

I have a lot of foreign holidays 😉😚