My 40th & my dad's 75th are a month apart (mine is in 2 weeks & we're off on hols that day). A few months ago my dad & I agreed it would be nice to get together between the 2 dates for a special family meal. Since then I've reminded my dad on several occasions that we really need to get the meal arranged or we'll run out of time. His reply was always "yes, we will do, nearer the time". He's retired but keeps very busy so I left it to him to let me know a convenient date. The original plan was to invite my stepmum's daughters & their families and to meet somewhere central to everyone. When I brought this up a couple of months ago my dad says "oh I don't think they'll come that far" even though it was his idea. He then said we could have a nice meal at a posh hotel near where they live. This hasn't been mentioned again so now, despite many reminders to him, this big birthday family meal has turned into a cup of tea & cake at my house followed by an early evening tea. He rang today to arrange the day & he said "at least if we do it now we can get it out of the way" and "if we go out early evening we can get away quickly". I mean thanks very much! I said to him why does it have to be quickly?! He says that he's been very busy and "things all seem to happen at once" - well I can't help when my birthday is and we discussed it ages ago. I want to tell him how disappointed I am by the whole thing but don't want to put a dampner on our birthday meal. But if I don't this sort of thing is bound to happen again as we seem to be dropping down his list of priorities. I see him once every couple of months & he lives an hours drive away. I'd love to see him more often but he's always busy.