After the last visit I made to my parents' house, it's become clear we can no longer stay there because of my dad's alzheimers. He is unable to cope with our 4 yr old for more than an hour or so and has taken to shouting at her quite nastily if she does things he doesn't approve of (ie anything that your average 4 yr old does!), or doesn't shut the door behind her, stuff like that. The last visit was very stressful and I don't want to subject her (or me!) to that anymore. I'd like her to have some nice memories of her grandad rather than him screaming at her...
Anyway,
We haven't been up for Christmas since DD was born and mum would really like us to go up there, especially as dad is going downhill very fast.
We would really like to go up for Christmas, to give my mum support if nothing else, but if we were to go to a hotel my mum would insist on cooking us Christmas dinner, which would be more stress for her and I really don't want to impose on her at the moment.
Because of his alzheimers dad can't/won't travel long distances and he really isn't well enough to visit restaurants etc.
Also DD would chafe at being in a hotel room in the evenings and tbh so would we!
So.... I thought a solution might be to hire a holiday cottage/self-catering place nearby for the long Christmas weekend, pick mum, dad and brother up on Christmas morning, cook the dinner for everyone (no hassle for me, I love catering for a crowd!), then they could get a taxi back when they were ready to go. Also DD gets a 'home' type environment rather than being restricted by a hotel...
What d'you reckon? Good idea? Doomed to disaster?